THE STEADFAST HEART
dumbly, quivering, as if awaiting a blow…. Another paroxysm of coughing came and passed. Titus Burke recovered himself and leered.
“So this is Angy—my leetle Angy? My, how you’ve growed up…. Clean forgot your pa I calc’late…. Well, I come back to remind you.”
Angus made no response. He could not speak.
“I jest got out,” Titus went on. He patted his chest. “They kep’ me in ’till I got this here cough…. Twelve years I served—and that hain’t no joke to any man…. Set me free with a five-dollar bill and this here suit—so I come a-lookin’ fer you—for my leetle Angy….”
Lydia cowered against the shrubbery, her eyes big with horror—her lips curling with repugnance and disgust, for Titus was not a pleasant object to look upon.
“I hadn’t no other place to go to,” Titus said, “and I got this here cough… and I knowed how welcome I’d be.” He leered again. “It’s goin’ to carry me off, but I kinder wanted to die comfortable—so I come back to give ye a chance to do your duty like a good and obedient son.”
Angus spoke in a leaden voice. “I thought you were dead,” he said.
“Hoped I was dead, ye mean…. Perty son I got. Grateful son, hain’t ye? ’Shamed of your ol’ pa that done so much fer ye. Livin’ in hifalutin’ style and rollin’ in money…. Wa-al,
319
