The Hungry Heart: A Novel

David Graham Phillips
The HUNGRY HEART
A NOVEL
NEW YORK AND LONDON D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1909
Copyright, 1909, by D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Published September, 1909
THE HUNGRY HEART
Courtship and honeymoon of Richard Vaughan and Courtney Benedict are told accurately enough by a thousand chroniclers of love's fairy tales and dreams. Where such romances end in a rosily vague And they lived happily ever after, there this history begins. Richard and Courtney have returned from Arcady to reality, to central Indiana and the Vaughan homestead, across the narrow width of Wenona the lake from Wenona the town.
The homecoming was late in a June evening, with a perfumed coolness descending upon the young lovers from the grand old trees, round the Vaughan house like his bodyguard round a king. Next morning toward eight Courtney, still half asleep, reached out hazily. Her hand met only the rumpled linen on Richard's side of the huge fourposter. She started up, brushed back the heavy wave of auburn hair fallen over her brow, gazed down at his pillow. The dent of his head, but not he. Her eyes searched the dimness. The big room contained only a few large pieces of old mahogany; at a glance she saw into every corner. Alone in the room. Her eyes, large and anxious now, regarded the half-open door of the dressing room to the rear.
Dick! she called hopefully.
No answer.
Dick! she repeated, a note of doubt in her voice.