The Road to Understanding

by Eleanor H. Porter

"Wenton is her home town, I suppose."

"Yes. She left there, you know, two years before I saw her. Her father died and then her mother; and she had to look out for herself. I shall write, of course, and send it up before I go. And I shall try to write decently; but I will own up, father, I'm mad clear through."

"Too bad, too bad!" John Denby frowned and shook his head again. "I must confess, Burke, that I, too, didn't quite think this—of Helen."

"I don't know her street address, of course." Burke was on his feet, pacing back and forth. "But that isn't necessary. It's a small town—I know that. I told her I thought she'd like the hotel best; but she may prefer to go to some friend's home. However, that doesn't signify. She'll get it all right, if I direct it simply to Wenton. But I can't have a reply before I leave. There isn't time, even if she deigned to write—which I doubt, in her present evident frame of mind. Pleasant, isn't it? Makes me feel real happy to start off with, to-morrow!"

"No, of course it doesn't," admitted John Denby, with a sigh. "But, come, Burke,"—his eyes grew wistful,—"don't let this silly whim of Helen's spoil everything. Fretting never did help anything, and perhaps, after all, it's the best thing that could have happened. A meeting between you, in Helen's present temper, could have resulted only in unhappiness. Obviously Helen is piqued and angry at your suggesting a separation for a time. She determined to give it to you—but to give it to you a little sooner than you wanted. That's her way of getting back at you. That's all. Let her alone. She'll come to her senses in time. Oh, write, of course," he hastened to add, in answer to the expression on his son's face. "But don't expect a reply too soon. You must remember you gave Helen a pretty big blow to her pride. I wish she had looked at the matter sensibly, of course; but probably that was too much to expect."

"I'm afraid it was—of—" Biting his lips, Burke pulled himself up sharply. "I'll go and write my letter," he finished wearily, instead.

And John Denby echoed the long sigh he drew.

It was January when John Denby and his son returned from their Alaskan trip. The long and rather serious illness of John Denby in November, and the necessary slowness of their journeying thereafter, had caused a series of delays very trying to both father and son.

To neither John Denby nor Burke had the trip been an entire success. Burke, in spite of his joy at being with his father and his delight in the traveling itself, could not get away from the shadow of an upturned bottle of ink in a Dale Street flat. At times, with all the old boyish enthusiasm and lightness of heart, he entered into whatever came; but underneath it all, and forever cropping uppermost, was a surge of anger, a bitterness of heart.

Not once, through the entire trip, had Burke heard from his wife. Their mail, of course, had been infrequent and irregular; but, from time to time, a batch of letters would be found waiting for them, and always, with feverish eagerness, Burke had scanned the envelopes for a sight of Helen's familiar scrawl. He had never found it, and he was very angry thereat. He was not worried or frightened. Any Denby of the Dalton Denbys was too well known not to have any vital information concerning him or her communicated to the family headquarters. If anything had happened to either Helen or the child, he would have known of it, of course, through Brett. This silence could mean, therefore, but one thing: Helen's own wish that he should not hear. He felt that he had a right to be angry. He pictured Helen happy, gay in her new finery, queening it over her old school friends in Wenton, and nursing wrath and resentment against himself (else why did she not write?)—and the picture did not please him.