Then, little by little, they carried their claim further. They were
not only home. They were the setting of a dream, long forgotten but now
vivid in his mind, and a refuge from the dreary present. That dream had
seen Elizabeth enshrined among the old familiar things; the old house
was to be a sanctuary for her and for him. From it and from her in the
dream he was to go out in the morning; to it and to her he was to come
home at night, after he had done a man's work.
The dream faded. Before him rose her face of the morning, impassive and
cool; her eyes, not hostile but indifferent. She had taken herself
out of his life, had turned her youth to youth, and forgotten him. He
understood and accepted it. He saw himself as he must have looked to
her, old and worn, scarred from the last months, infinitely changed. And
she was young. Heavens, how young she was!...
Lucy was buried the next afternoon. It was raining, and the quiet
procession followed Dick and the others who carried her light body under
grotesquely bobbing umbrellas. Then he and David, and Minnie and Mike,
went back to the house, quiet with that strange emptiness that follows a
death, the unconscious listening for a voice that will not speak again,
for a familiar footfall. David had not gone upstairs. He sat in Lucy's
sitting-room, in his old frock coat and black tie, with a knitted afghan
across his knees. His throat looked withered in his loose collar. And
there for the first time they discussed the future.
"You're giving up a great deal, Dick," David said. "I'm proud of
you, and like you I think the money's best where it is. But this is a
prejudiced town, and they think you've treated Elizabeth badly. If you
don't intend to tell the story--"
"Never," Dick announced, firmly. "Judson Clark is dead." He smiled
at David with something of his old humor. "I told Bassett to put up a
monument if he wanted to. But you're right about one thing. They're not
ready to take me back. I've seen it a dozen times in the last two days."
"I never gave up a fight yet." David's voice was grim.
"On the other hand, I don't want to make it uncomfortable for her.
We are bound to meet. I'm putting my own feeling aside. It doesn't
matter--except of course to me. What I thought was--We might go into the
city. Reynolds would buy the house. He's going to be married."