The Ethan of ten years ago stood in the corner with his hands on a girl's shoulders, saying "Promise!" And the girl sang no more.
She went on from room to room as if still looking for that something she had lost. Up-stairs again—into the room that had been her father's long ago, her husband's now, and full of the impress of his spirit. His pictures, his books—it was the one room in the house wholly, utterly changed, in atmosphere and outward seeming. In the corner of the red damask lounge by the fire, a little old book. She picked it up. Seneca! She hadn't seen it since that day two years ago on the river, when he refused to translate the passage he had marked. She would take it away and spell out for herself those things in the marked book that had marked the soul of the man she loved. A large empty envelope, folded double, had fallen out. It bore the stamp of the Navy Department, and the Washington postmark. A memorandum in pencil in Ethan's fine handwriting: "Army contracts—fight corruption." On the other side some verses.
Ah! he was beginning to write again. No; there was an unfamiliar name at the end. Still, what was it that he had taken the trouble to copy?
"Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle,
Earth and high heaven are fixt of old and founded strong.
Think, rather—call to thought, if now you grieve a little,
The days when we had rest, oh soul, for they were long.
"Men loved unkindness then, but lightless in the quarry
I slept and saw not; tears fell down, I did not mourn;
Sweat ran, and blood sprang out, and I was never sorry: