She coughed, her handkerchief before her face—she laughed with brightness. “One learns to be careful about death—but never, never about——” She didn’t finish but stared before her.
“Why did you bring the child here—why did you return at all then—after so long a time—it seems all so mixed up?”
“I don’t know—— Perhaps because there is a right and a wrong, and a good and an evil. I had to find out—and if there’s such a thing as everlasting mercy—I want to find out about that also—there’s a flavour of unfamiliar intimacy about it all, though, this Christian treatment——” She had a way of lifting up the side of her face, closing her eyes. “I thought—Paytor may know.”
“Know what?”
“Will know—well, will be able to divide me against myself—— Personally I don’t feel divided—I seem to be a sane and balanced whole—a hopelessly mixed, but perfect design. So I said Paytor will be able to see where this divides and departs. Though all the time I never for a moment felt that there was a system working on a this for that basis, but that there was only this and that—in other words—I wanted to be set wrong.... You understand?”
“And you yourself,” he inquired, in the same loud voice, “cannot feel the war? Well, then, what about me?—you must realize what you have done—turned everything upside down—oh, I won’t even say betrayed me—it’s much less than that, what most of us do, we betray circumstances—well, I can’t do anything for you,” he said sharply. “I can’t do anything at all—I’m sorry, I’m very sorry—but there it is”—he began to grimace and twitch his shoulders.
“The child has it too,” Julie Anspacher said, looking up at him. “I shall die soon.—It’s ridiculous,” she added, with the tears streaming down her face. “You are strong, always were—and so were all your family before you—not one of them in their graves under ninety—it’s all wrong—it’s quite ridiculous.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps it’s not ridiculous. One must be very careful not to come, too hastily, to a conclusion.” He began searching for his pipe. “Only you know yourself, Julie, how I torment myself, if it’s a big enough thing, for days, weeks, years; and the reason is, the real reason is, that I come to my conclusions instantly, and then fight to destroy them.” He seemed to Julie a little pompous now. “It’s because first I’m human, and second, logical. Well, I don’t know—perhaps I’ll be able to tell you something later—give you a beginning at least—later——” He twitched his shoulders and went out, closing the door after him. She heard him climbing the familiar creaking stairs, the yellow painted stairs that led up into the roof—she heard him strike a match—then silence.
The dark had begun, closing in about bushes and barn, and filling the air with moist joyousness, the joyousness of autumn that trusts itself to the darkness, and Julie leaned on her hand by the shelf and listened.
She could hear, far away and faint, the sound of dogs on heavy chains. She tried to stop, listening to the outside, but her thoughts rotted away like clouds in a wind.