Twenty paces on his way he laughed again.
When he was out of sight he laughed.
At intervals all the way down the mountain he stopped to laugh.
The sound of his laughter reverberated, echoed, swirled, went and returned, filled the whole valley, blasting the night. Then when he was far off he uttered a piercing scream. It rose on the air like a rocket, hissed, burst with a soft splash and pitched off into space, and the world for a moment was deathly still. The tree frogs were the first to recover and began frantically to fill up the void.
Aaron touched Esther. They descended. She inquired of him nothing; he informed her of nothing. They did not speak again for hours. They walked to the Woolwine mansion. He called for horses, a light vehicle, and wraps. And all that night they drove, past the setting moon, into the darkness, through the dawn, toward Wilkes-Barre.
Next day at noon they were married.
VII
The partnership of Gib and Breakspeare was sundered.
Two weeks later, when Aaron returned to the little red office building across the road from the mill, he found on his desk a paper marked “Articles of Dissolution.” Attached was a note of two lines from Enoch, saying: “Let any changes proposed to be made herein appear in the form of writing, or through an attorney at law.”