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Dismissing the thought did no good. It came back. But because she was
a healthy-minded and practical person she took the one course she could
think of, and put the question that night to her father, when he came
back from seeing David.
David had sent for him early in the evening. All day he had thought
over the situation between Dick and Elizabeth, with growing pain and
uneasiness. He had not spoken of it to Lucy, or to Harrison Miller; he
knew that they would not understand, and that Lucy would suffer. She was
bewildered enough by Dick's departure.
At noon he had insisted on getting up and being helped into his
trousers. So clad he felt more of a man and better able to cope with
things, although his satisfaction in them was somewhat modified by the
knowledge of two safety-pins at the sides, to take up their superfluous
girth at the waistband.
But even the sense of being clothed as a man again did not make it
easier to say to Walter Wheeler what must be said.
Walter took the news of Dick's return with a visible brightening. It was
as though, out of the wreckage of his middle years, he saw that there
was now some salvage, but he was grave and inarticulate over it, wrung
David's hand and only said: "Thank God for it, David." And after a pause: "Was he all right? He
remembered everything?"
But something strange in the situation began to obtrude itself into his
mind. Dick had come back twenty-four hours ago. Last night. And all this
time-"Where is he now?"
"He's not here, Walter."
"He has gone away again, without seeing Elizabeth?"
David cleared his throat.
"He is still a fugitive. He doesn't himself know he isn't guilty. I
think he feels that he ought not to see her until--"
"Come, come," Walter Wheeler said impatiently. "Don't try to find
excuses for him. Let's have the truth, David. I guess I can stand it."
Poor David, divided between his love for Dick and his native honesty,
threw out his hands.
"I don't understand it, Wheeler," he said. "You and I wouldn't, I
suppose. We are not the sort to lose the world for a woman. The plain
truth is that there is not a trace of Judson Clark in him to-day, save
one. That's the woman."
When Wheeler said nothing, but sat twisting his hat in his hands, David
went on. It might be only a phase. As its impression on Dick's youth
had been deeper than others, so its effect was more lasting. It might
gradually disappear. He was confident, indeed, that it would. He had
been reading on the subject all day.