Mr. Kris Kringle | Page 7

"for now I must go."
"And will you nevah, nevah come back?"
"My God!" cried the man. "Never--perhaps never. Don't forget me, Alice, Hugh." And this time he kissed them again and went by and opened the door to the stairway.
"We thank you ever so much," said Hugh, and standing aside he waited for Alice to pass, having in his child-like ways something of the grave courtesy of the ancestors who looked down on him from the walls. Alice courtesied and the small cavalier, still with the old rapier in hand, bowed low. Kris stood at the door and listened to the patter of little feet upon the stair; then he closed it with noiseless care. In a few minutes he had put out the candles, resumed his cloak, and left the house. The snow no longer fell. The waning night was clearer, and to eastward a faint rosy gleam foretold the coming of the sun of Christmas. Kris glanced up at the long-windowed house and turning went slowly down the garden path.
Long before their usual hour of rising, the children burst into the mother's room. "You monkeys," she cried, smiling; "Merry Christmas to you! What is the matter?"
"Oh! he was here! he did come!" cried Alice.
"Khwis was here," said Hugh. "I did hear him in the night, and I told Alice it was Khwis, and she said it was a wobber, and I said it wasn't a wobber. And we went to see, and it was a man. It was Khwis. He did say so."
"What! a man at night in the house! Are you crazy, children?"
"And Hugh took grandpapa's sword, and--"
"Gweat-gwanpapa's," said Hugh, with strict accuracy.
"You brave boy!" cried the woman, proudly. "And he stole nothing, and, oh! what a silly tale."
"But it was Khwis, mamma. He did give us things. I do tell you it was Khwis Kwingle."
"Oh! he gave us things for you, and for me, and for Hugh, and he gave me this," cried Alice, who had kept her hand behind her, and now threw the royal pearls on the bed amid a glory of Eastern scarves.
"Are we all bewitched?" cried the mother.
"Oh! and skates, and sugar-plums, and books, and a doll, and this for you. Oh! Khwis didn't forget nobody, mamma."
The mother seized and hastily opened the blank envelope which the boy gave her.
"What! what!" she cried, as she stared at the inclosure; "is this a jest?"
UNION TRUST CO., NEW YORK.
MADAME:--We have the honor to hold at your disposal the following registered United States bonds, in all amounting to ----.
The sum was a great fortune. The Trust Company was known to her, even its president's signature.
"What's the matter, mamma," cried Alice, amazed at the unusual look the calm mother's face wore as she arose from the bed, while the great pearls tumbled over and lay on the sunlit floor, and the fairy letter fell unheeded. Her thoughts were away in the desert of her past life.
"And here, I forgot," said Hugh, "Mr. Khwis did write you a letter."
"Quick," she cried. "Give it to me." She opened it with fierce eagerness. Then she said, "Go away, leave me alone. Yes, yes, I will talk to you by and by. Go now." And she drove the astonished children from the room and sat down with her letter.
"DEAR ALICE:--Shall I say wife? I promised to come no more until you asked me to come. I can stand it no longer. I came only meaning to see the dear home, and to send you and my dear children a remembrance, but I--You know the rest. If in those dark days the mother care and fear instinctively set aside what little love was left for me I do not now wonder. Was it well, or ill, what you did when you bid me go? In God's time I have learned to think it well. That hour is to me now like a blurred dream. To-day I can bless the anger and the sense of duty to our children which drove me forth--too debased a thing to realize my loss. I have won again my self-control, thank God! am a man once more. You have, have always had, my love. You have to-day again a dozen times the fortune I meanly squandered. I shall never touch it; it is yours and your children's. And now, Alice, is all love dead for me? And is it Yes or No? And shall I be always to my little ones Kris, and to-night a mysterious memory, or shall I be once more
YOUR HUGH?
"A letter to the bank will find me."
As she read, the quick tears came aflood. She turned to her desk and wrote in tremulous haste, "Come, come at once," and ringing for the maid, sent it off to the address he gave. The next