Paul and Dan ran to the platform of the rear car as the train drew out of the station, and had a last fleeting glimpse of Amesbury standing there gazing after them, a look of wistful longing in his eyes.
CHAPTER XXI
BAD NEWS AND GOOD
When John Densmore returned home after meeting Remington, he broke the news of Paul’s supposed death to the boy’s mother as gently as he could. She sat dry-eyed and mute, staring at him during the recital as though not fully comprehending the purport of his words. Densmore drew her to him and kissed her forehead.
“Mother! Mother!” he soothed, “bear up! It’s a dreadful calamity, but we shall have to bear it!”
She fainted in his arms, and for several weeks was very ill. Even when she was again able to be about she was constantly under the care of a physician, and trained nurses remained with her night and day. The shock had left her in a state of nervous melancholia.
She had always deprecated Remington’s proclivities for hunting and out-of-door sports. Now she felt very bitterly toward him, repeatedly asserting that he was directly responsible for Paul’s loss, at the same time upbraiding herself unceasingly for having permitted Paul to take part in the expedition.
Hour after hour she would sit, her hands folded in her lap, indulging her sorrow in silent brooding. She would picture Paul as he looked when he said his last farewell; her imagination would carry her to the desolate shores of Hudson Bay; she would see him struggling in icy waters; she would hear his last agonizing cry to her as he sank finally beneath the waves; and always his face cold in death, and his body unburied and uncared for, perhaps the prey of savage animals, rose up before her to reprove her for permitting him to leave her. These were the things she dreamed of, asleep and awake, and they were the only subjects of her conversation.
Densmore was most devoted to his wife. He gave much of his time to her, and as the months passed more and more of the conduct of his vast business affairs was left in the hands of trained subordinates.