"My God, boy, don't you see that I can't bear to look at you through these bars? Go! Please go! Good-bye! Write to me, but don't come here again. Don't! It's only a few years."
He turned away abruptly, his shoulder drawn upward as if in pain, and Graydon left the place, weakened and sick at heart.
Jane and Droom were awaiting him in an outer office. The former looked into his eyes searchingly, tenderly.
"I'm so sorry, Graydon," she said as she took his hand in hers.
All the way back to Chicago Elias Droom sat and watched them from under lowered brows, wondering why it was that he felt so much lonelier than he ever had felt before,—wondering, too, in a vague sort of way, why he was not able to exult, after all.
CHAPTER XXXI — THE TRANSFORMING OF DROOM
Jane was ill and did not leave her room during the two days following the visit to the penitentiary. She was haunted by the face of James Bansemer, the convict. It was beyond her powers of imagination to recall him as the well-groomed, distinguished man she once had known. Graydon was deeply distressed over the pain and humiliation he had subjected her to through Droom's unfortunate efforts. The fact that she could not or would not see him for two days hurt him more than he could express, even to himself. The day before he left for New York, however, she saw him in their parlour. She was pale and very quiet.
Neither mentioned the visit to the prison; there was nothing to say.