CHAPTER XV EXPLANATIONS
By midnight, when the fury of the storm had abated, there was still no Richard. Mrs. Lister would not hear of going to bed, but sat stiffly upon the sofa in the study or wandered through the house. With a candle she explored the third story, venturing even into the tank room where the dim light cast flickering shadows on the brown unfinished walls and ceiling. She remembered with horror the old story of the bride locked into a chest and found mouldering after many years, and a more recent and sentimental tale of a young woman, who, discovering that she was merely the foster child of her parents, fell fainting to the floor before the old trunk into which she had been prying, and there remained until she was accidentally stumbled upon. Mrs. Lister did not climb the projecting beam and look into the tank—that madness she forbade herself.
She went into Richard's room and opened distractedly the cupboard door, then laid back the covers on the bed as she had always laid back Richard's covers, every night of his life.
As Dr. Lister sat beside her, he heard the whole story of Basil Everman, and his first puritanic disapproval of Basil's course gave place to protesting amazement.
"Something within him seemed to impel him to do wrong things," said Mrs. Lister. "It wasn't that he didn't love us. I am convinced that he loved us dearly. But he had to have his own way!"
"'Had to have his own way!'" Dr. Lister repeated the words to himself. His own way, which led him to "Roses of Pæstum" and "Bitter Bread"! If they had only let him have his own way, unmolested, or had helped him to it, poor Basil might not have turned into this unpleasant by-path.
Certainly the friendship between Richard and Eleanor Bent must end. Could there be any serious feeling between them? With this new light upon the girl's mental inheritance and with quickened recollection of her as she had sat in his classes, came deeper alarm.
There were moments when Mrs. Lister, in her fright and exhaustion, seemed to confuse Basil and Richard. Basil had been out in such storms; she had waited and watched for him all night long. He had been gone not only all night, but days and nights. Sometimes he had been almost within call, but he had insisted upon watching the storms. He was sorry to have troubled them, but he would not change any of his idle, purposeless ways.
She had tried and her father had tried to find a precedent for Basil, but in vain.