The Breaking Point

  XXXVIII

  On the night Bassett and Harrison Miller were to return from ChicagoLucy sat downstairs in her sitting-room waiting for news.

  At ten o'clock, according to her custom, she went up to see that Davidwas comfortable for the night, and to read him that prayer for theabsent with which he always closed his day of waiting. But before shewent she stopped before the old mirror in the hall, to see if she woreany visible sign of tension.

  The door into Dick's office was open, and on his once neat desk therelay a litter of papers and letters. She sighed and went up the stairs.

  David lay propped up in his walnut bed. An incredibly wasted and oldDavid; the hands on the log-cabin quilt which their mother had made wereold hands, and tired. Sometimes Lucy, with a frightened gasp, would fearthat David's waiting now was not all for Dick. That he was waiting forpeace.

  There had been something new in David lately. She thought it was fear.Always he had been so sure of himself; he had made his experiment ina man's soul, and whatever the result he had been ready to face hisCreator with it. But he had lost courage. He had tampered with thethings that were to be and not he, but Dick, was paying for that awfulaudacity.

  Once, picking up his prayer-book to read evening prayer as was hercustom now, it had opened at a verse marked with an uneven line:

  "I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto Him, Father, Ihave sinned against Heaven and before Thee, and am no more worthy to becalled Thy son."

  That had frightened her

  David's eyes followed her about the room.

  "I've got an idea you're keeping something from me, Lucy."

  "I? Why should I do that?"

  "Then where's Harrison?" he demanded, querulously.

  She told him one of the few white lies of her life when she said: "Hehasn't been well. He'll be over to-morrow." She sat down and pickedup the prayer-book, only to find him lifting himself in the bed andlistening.

  "Somebody closed the hall door, Lucy. If it's Reynolds, I want to seehim."

  She got up and went to the head of the stairs. The light was low in thehall beneath, and she saw a man standing there. But she still wore herreading glasses, and she saw at first hardly more than a figure.

  "Is that you, Doctor Reynolds?" she asked, in her high old voice.

  Then she put her hand to her throat and stood rigid, staring down. Forthe man had whipped off his cap and stood with his arms wide, lookingup.

  Holding to the stair-rail, her knees trembling under her, Lucy wentdown, and not until Dick's arms were around her was she sure that it wasDick, and not his shabby, weary ghost. She clung to him, tears streamingdown her face, still in that cautious silence which governed them both;she held him off and looked at him, and then strained herself to himagain, as though the sense of unreality were too strong, and only thecontact of his rough clothing made him real to her.

  It was not until they were in her sitting-room with the door closed thateither of them dared to speak. Or perhaps, could speak. Even then shekept hold of him.

  "Dick!" she said. "Dick!"

  And that, over and over.

  "How is he?" he was able to ask finally.

  "He has been very ill. I began to think--Dick, I'm afraid to tell him.I'm afraid he'll die of joy."

  He winced at that. There could not be much joy in the farewell that wascoming. Winced, and almost staggered. He had walked all the way from thecity, and he had had no food that day.

  "We'll have to break it to him very gently," he said. "And he mustn'tsee me like this. If you can find some of my clothes and Reynolds'razor, I'll--" He caught suddenly to the back of a chair and held on toit. "I haven't taken time to eat much to-day," he said, smiling at her."I guess I need food, Aunt Lucy."

  For the first time then she saw his clothes, his shabbiness andhis pallor, and perhaps she guessed the truth. She got up, her facetwitching, and pushed him into a chair.

  "You sit here," she said, "and leave the door closed. The nurse is outfor a walk, and she'll be in soon. I'll bring some milk and cookies now,and start the fire. I've got some chops in the house."

  When she came back almost immediately, with the familiar tray and thefamiliar food, he was sitting where she had left him. He had spent theentire time, had she known it, in impressing on his mind the familiardetails of the room, to carry away with him.

  She stood beside him, a hand on his shoulder, to see that he drank themilk slowly.

  "I've got the fire going," she said. "And I'll run up now and get yourclothes. I--had put them away." Her voice broke a little. "You see,we--You can change in your laboratory. Richard, can't you? If you goupstairs he'll hear you."

  He reached up and caught her hand. That touch, too, of the nearest toa mother's hand that he had known, he meant to carry away with him. Hecould not speak.

  She bustled away, into her bright kitchen first, and then with happystealth to the store-room. Her very heart was singing within her. Sheneither thought nor reasoned. Dick was back, and all would be well.If she had any subconscious anxieties they were quieted, alsosubconsciously, by confidence in the men who were fighting his battlefor him, by Walter Wheeler and Bassett and Harrison Miller. That Dickhimself would present any difficulty lay beyond her worst fears.

  She had been out of the room only twenty minutes when she returned toDavid and prepared to break her great news. At first she thought he wasasleep. He was lying back with his eyes closed and his hands crossed onthe prayer-book. But he looked up at her, and was instantly roused tofull attention by her face.

  "You've had some news," he said.

  "Yes, David. There's a little news. Don't count too much on it. Don'tsit up. David, I have heard something that makes me think he is alive.Alive and well."

  He made a desperate effort and controlled himself.

  "Where is he?"

  She sat down beside him and took his hand between hers.

  "David," she said slowly, "God has been very good to us. I want to tellyou something, and I want you to prepare yourself. We have heardfrom Dick. He is all right. He loves us, as he always did. And--he isdownstairs, David."

  He lay very still and without speaking. She was frightened at first,afraid to go on with her further news. But suddenly David sat up in bedand in a full, firm voice began the Te Deum Laudamus. "We praise thee,O God: we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. All the earth doth worshipthee, the Father everlasting."

  He repeated it in its entirety. At the end, however, his voice broke.

  "O Lord, in thee have I trusted--I doubted Him, Lucy," he said.

  Dick, waiting at the foot of the stairs, heard that triumphant paean ofthanksgiving and praise and closed his eyes.

  It was a few minutes later that Lucy came down the stairs again.

  "You heard him?" she asked. "Oh, Dick, he had frightened me. It was morethan a question of himself and you. He was making it one of himself andGod."

  She let him go up alone and waited below, straining her ears, but sheheard nothing beyond David's first hoarse cry, and after a little shewent into her sitting-room and shut the door.

  Whatever lay underneath, there was no surface drama in the meeting. Thedetermination to ignore any tragedy in the situation was strong inthem both, and if David's eyes were blurred and his hands trembling, ifDick's first words were rather choked, they hid their emotion carefully.

  "Well, here I am, like a bad penny!" said Dick huskily from the doorway.

  "And a long time you've been about it," grumbled David. "You youngrascal!"

  He held out his hand, and Dick crushed it between both of his. He wasstartled at the change in David. For a moment he could only stand there,holding his hand, and trying to keep his apprehension out of his face.

  "Sit down," David said awkwardly, and blew his nose with a terrificblast. "I've been laid up for a while, but I'm all right now. I'll foolthem all yet," he boasted, out of his happiness and content. "Businesshas been going to the dogs, Dick. Reynolds is a fool."

  "Of
course you'll fool them." There was still a band around Dick'sthroat. It hurt him to look at David, so thin and feeble, so sunken fromhis former portliness. And David saw his eyes, and knew.

  "I've dropped a little flesh, eh, Dick?" he inquired. "Old bulge isgone, you see. The nurse makes up the bed when I'm in it, flat as whenI'm out."

  Suddenly his composure broke. He was a feeble and apprehensive old man,shaken with the tearless sobbing of weakness and age. Dick put an armacross his shoulders, and they sat without speech until David was quietagain.

  "I'm a crying old woman, Dick," David said at last. "That's what comesof never feeling a pair of pants on your legs and being coddled likea baby." He sat up and stared around him ferociously. "They sprinkleviolet water on my pillows, Dick! Can you beat that?"

  Warned by Lucy, the nurse went to her room and did not disturb them.But she sat for a time in her rocking-chair, before she changed into thenightgown and kimono in which she slept on the couch in David's room.She knew the story, and her kindly heart ached within her. What goodwould it do after all, this home-coming? Dick could not stay. It waseven dangerous. Reynolds had confided to her that he suspected a watchon the house by the police, and that the mail was being opened. Whatgood was it?

  Across the hall she could hear Lucy moving briskly about in Dick'sroom, changing the bedding, throwing up the windows, opening and closingbureau drawers. After a time Lucy tapped at her door and she opened it.

  "I put a cake of scented soap among your handkerchiefs," she said,rather breathlessly. "Will you let me have it for Doctor Dick's room?"

  She got the soap and gave it to her.

  "He is going to stay, then?"

  "Certainly he is going to stay," Lucy said, surprised. "This is hishome. Where else should he go?"

  But David knew. He lay, listening with avid interest to Dick's story,asking a question now and then, nodding over Dick's halting attempt toreconstruct the period of his confusion, but all the time one part ofhim, a keen and relentless inner voice, was saying: "Look at him well.Hold him close. Listen to his voice. Because this hour is yours, andperhaps only this hour."

  "Then the Sayre woman doesn't know about your coming?" he asked, whenDick had finished.

  "Still, she mustn't talk about having seen you. I'll send Reynolds up inthe morning."

  He was eager to hear of what had occurred in the long interval betweenthem, and good, bad and indifferent Dick told him. But he limitedhimself to events, and did not touch on his mental battles, and Davidsaw and noted it. The real story, he knew, lay there, but it was nottime for it. After a while he raised himself in his bed.

  "Call Lucy, Dick."

  When she had come, a strangely younger Lucy, her withered cheeks flushedwith exercise and excitement, he said:

  "Bring me the copy of the statement I made to Harrison Miller, Lucy."

  She brought it, patted Dick's shoulder, and went away. David held outthe paper.

  "Read it slowly, boy," he said. "It is my justification, and Godwilling, it may help you. The letter is from my brother, Henry. Readthat, too."

  Lucy, having got Dick's room in readiness, sat down in it to await hiscoming. Downstairs, in the warming oven, was his supper. His bed, withthe best blankets, was turned down and ready. His dressing-gown andslippers were in their old accustomed place. She drew a long breath.

  Below, Doctor Reynolds came in quietly and stood listening. The housewas very still, and he decided that his news, which was after allno news, could wait. He went into the office and got out a sheet ofnote-paper, with his name at the top, and began his nightly letter toClare Rossiter.

  "My darling," it commenced.

  Above, David lay in his bed and Dick read the papers in his hand. And ashe read them David watched him. Not once, since Dick's entrance, hadhe mentioned Elizabeth. David lay still and pondered that. There wassomething wrong about it. This was Dick, their own Dick; no shadowyghost of the past, but Dick himself. True, an older Dick, strangelyhaggard and with gray running in the brown of his hair, but stillDick; the Dick whose eyes had lighted at the sight of a girl, who hadshamelessly persisted in holding her hand at that last dinner, who hadalmost idolatrously loved her.

  And he had not mentioned her name.

  When he had finished the reading Dick sat for a moment with the papersin his hand, thinking.

  "I see," he said finally. "Of course, it's possible. Good God, if Icould only think it."

  "It's the answer," David said stubbornly. "He was prowling around, andfired through the window. Donaldson made the statement at the inquestthat some one had been seen on the place, and that he notified you thatnight after dinner. He'd put guards around the place."

  "It gives me a fighting chance, anyhow." Dick got up and threw back hisshoulders. "That's all I want. A chance to fight. I know this. I hatedLucas--he was a poor thing and you know what he did to me. But I neverthought of killing him. That wouldn't have helped matters. It was toolate."

  "What about--that?" David asked, not looking at him. When Dick did notimmediately reply David glanced at him, to find his face set and pained.

  "Perhaps we'd better not go into that now," David said hastily. "It'snatural that the readjustments will take time."

  "We'll have to go into it. It's the hardest thing I have to face."

  "It's not dead, then?"

  "No," Dick said slowly. "It's not dead, David. And I'd better bring itinto the open. I've fought it to the limit by myself. It's the one thingthat seems to have survived the shipwreck. I can't argue it down orthink it down."

  "Maybe, if you see Elizabeth--"

  "I'd break her heart, that's all."

  He tried to make David understand. He told in its sordid details hisfailure to kill it, his attempts to sink memory and conscience inChicago and their failure, the continued remoteness of Elizabeth andwhat seemed to him the flesh and blood reality of the other woman. Thatshe was yesterday, and Elizabeth was long ago.

  "I can't argue it down," he finished. "I've tried to, desperately. It'sa--I think it's a wicked thing, in a way. And God knows all she ever gotout of it was suffering. She must loathe the thought of me."

  David was compelled to let it rest there. He found that Dick wasdoggedly determined to see Beverly Carlysle. After that, he didn't know.No man wanted to surrender himself for trial, unless he was surehimself of whether he was innocent or guilty. If there was a reasonabledoubt--but what did it matter one way or the other? His place was gone,as he'd made it, gone if he was cleared, gone if he was convicted.

  "I can't come back, David. They wouldn't have me."

  After a silence he asked:

  "How much is known here? What does Elizabeth know?"

  "The town knows nothing. She knows a part of it. She cares a great deal,Dick. It's a tragedy for her."

  "Shall you tell her I have been here?"

  "Not unless you intend to see her."

  But Dick shook his head.

  "Even if other things were the same I haven't a right to see her, untilI've got a clean slate."

  "That's sheer evasion," David said, almost with irritation.

  "Yes," Dick acknowledged gravely. "It is sheer evasion."

  "What about the police?" he inquired after a silence. "I was registeredat Norada. I suppose they traced me?"

  "Yes. The house was watched for a while; I understand they've given itup now."

  In response to questions about his own condition David was almostquerulous. He was all right. He would get well if they'd let him, andstop coddling him. He would get up now, in spite of them. He was goodfor one more fight before he died, and he intended to make it, in acourt if necessary.

  "They can't prove it, Dick," he said triumphantly. "I've been over itevery day for months. There is no case. There never was a case, for thatmatter. They're a lot of pin-headed fools, and we'll show them up, boy.We'll show them up."

  But for all his excitement fatigue was telling on him. Lucy tapped atthe door and came in.

  "You'd better
have your supper before it spoils," she said. "And Davidneeds a rest. Doctor Reynolds is in the office. I haven't told him yet."

  The two men exchanged glances.

  "Time for that later," David said. "I can't keep him out of my office,but I can out of my family affairs for an hour or so."

  So it happened that Dick followed Lucy down the back stairs and ate hismeal stealthily in the kitchen.

  "I don't like you to eat here," she protested.

  "I've eaten in worse places," he said, smiling at her. "And sometimesnot at all." He was immediately sorry for that, for the tears came toher eyes.

  He broke as gently as he could the news that he could not stay, but itwas a great blow to her. Her sagging chin quivered piteously, and ittook all the cheerfulness he could summon and all the promises of returnhe could make to soften the shock.

  "You haven't even seen Elizabeth," she said at last.

  "That will have to wait until things are cleared up, Aunt Lucy."

  "Won't you write her something then, Richard? She looks like a ghostthese days."

  Her eyes were on him, puzzled and wistful. He met them gravely.

  "I haven't the right to see her, or to write to her."

  And the finality in his tone closed the discussion, that and somethingvery close to despair in his face.

  For all his earlier hunger he ate very little, and soon after he tiptoedup the stairs again to David's room. When he came down to the kitchenlater on he found her still there, at the table where he had left her,her arms across it and her face buried in them. On a chair was thesuitcase she had hastily packed for him, and a roll of bills lay on thetable.

  "You must take it," she insisted. "It breaks my heart to think--Dick, Ihave the feeling that I am seeing you for the last time." Then for fearshe had hurt him she forced a determined smile. "Don't pay any attentionto me. David will tell you that I have said, over and over, that I'dnever see you again. And here you are!"

  He was going. He had said good-bye to David and was going at once. Sheaccepted it with a stoicism born of many years of hail and farewell,kissed him tenderly, let her hand linger for a moment on the roughsleeve of his coat, and then let him out by the kitchen door into theyard. But long after he had gone she stood in the doorway, staringout...

  In the office Doctor Reynolds was finishing a long and carefully writtenletter.

  "I am not good at putting myself on paper, as you know, dear heart. Butthis I do know. I do not believe that real love dies. We may bury it,so deep that it seems to be entirely dead, but some day it sends upa shoot, and it either lives, or the business of killing it has to bebegun all over again. So when we quarrel, I always know--"