His thoughts flew to Elizabeth. Everything was changed now, as to

Elizabeth. He would have to be very certain of that past of his before

he could tell her that he loved her, and he had a sense of immediate

helplessness. He could not go to David, as things were. To Lucy?

Probably he would have gone to Lucy at once, but the telephone rang.

He answered it, got his hat and bag and went out to the car. Years with

David had made automatic the subordination of self to the demands of the

practice.

At half past six Lucy heard him come in and go into his office. When he

did not immediately reappear and take his flying run up the stairs to

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David's room, she stood outside the office door and listened. She had a

premonition of something wrong, something of the truth, perhaps. Anyhow,

she tapped at the door and opened it, to find him sitting very quietly

at his desk with his head in his hands.

"Dick!" she exclaimed. "Is anything wrong?"

"I have a headache," he said. He looked at his watch and got up. "I'll

take a look at David, and then we'll have dinner. I didn't know it was

so late."

But when she had gone out he did not immediately move. He had been going

over again, painfully and carefully, the things that puzzled him, that

he had accepted before without dispute. David and Lucy's reluctance to

discuss his father; the long days in the cabin, with David helping him

to reconstruct his past; the spring, and that slow progress which now he

felt, somehow, had been an escape.

He ate very little dinner, and Lucy's sense of dread increased. When,

after the meal, she took refuge in her sitting-room on the lower floor

and picked up her knitting, it was with a conviction that it was only a

temporary reprieve. She did not know from what.

She heard him, some time later, coming down from David's room. But he

did not turn into his office. Instead, he came on to her door, stood for

a moment like a man undecided, then came in. She did not look up, even

when very gently he took her knitting from her and laid it on the table.

"Aunt Lucy."

"Yes, Dick."

"Don't you think we'd better have a talk?"

"What about?" she asked, with her heart hammering.

"About me." He stood above her, and looked down, still with the

tenderness with which he always regarded her, but with resolution in his

very attitude. "First of all, I'll tell you something. Then I'll ask you

to tell me all you can."




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