They stopped for no further explanation. That could wait. Thor was out of the house, tearing down the empty street, while she followed scarcely less swiftly. At that time of night they were almost sure to have the roadway to themselves.
She lost sight of him as he turned in at the avenue, but continued to press on. That there had been a struggle between the brothers she could guess, though she let the matter pass without further mental comment. The fact that filled her consciousness was that in some strange way Thor was back—wild-eyed and bleeding. Whatever had happened, he would probably need her now, accepting the substitute for love.
Half-way up the avenue she saw that both the inner and outer doors of the house were open and that the electricity from the hall lit up the porch and steps. Thor was still running, but at the foot of the steps he surprised her by coming to a halt instead of leaping up them, two or three at a time. Stopping abruptly, silhouetted in the spot of light, he threw his hands above his head as if he had been shot and were staggering backward. He hadn't been shot, because there was no sound. He hadn't even been wounded, because as she sped toward him she could see him stoop—spring away—return—and stoop again. She was about to call out, "Oh, Thor, what is it?" when, on hearing her footsteps, he bounded to his feet and ran in her direction. "Go back!" he cried, hoarsely. "Go back! Go back, Lois, go back!"
But she hurried on. If there was trouble or danger she must be by his side.
He wheeled around again to that over which he had been stooping, but with a repetition of the movement of flinging up the hands. After that he seemed to crawl away—to crawl away till he reached the steps, where, pulling himself half-way up, he lay with his face hidden. The thing he had seen was something fatal and final, leaving no more to be done. The thought came to her that if there was no more for him to do, it was probable that her work was just beginning and that she must keep herself calm and strong.
She came to him at last and bent over his long, prostrate form. It was racked and heaving. The sobbing was of a kind she had never heard before—the violent, convulsive sobbing of a man.
Raising herself, she looked about for the cause of this grief, for a second or two seeing nothing. The respite enabled her to renew her sense of the necessity laid upon her to be helpful. Whatever was there, she must neither flinch nor cry out. She must take up the task where he had been forced to lay it down.
It was a bare arm from which the shirt-sleeve had been torn away that caught her attention first—a bare arm with a spatter of blood on it. It lay extended along the grass just beside the driveway. She was obliged to take a step or two toward it before seeing that it was Claude's arm, and that he himself was lying on the sward of the lawn, with a little trickle of blood from his heart.
She was not frightened. She was not even appalled. She understood as readily what she ought to do as if the accident had been part of every day's routine. But as her glance went first to the dead brother and then to the living one she knew that her substitute for love had been found.