"I decline to answer."
"So you give me not even the benefit of a doubt! You believe it!"
Patty was less observant than usual. "Will you please go now? I do not think there is anything more to be said."
"No. I will go." He spoke quietly, but like a man who has received his death-stroke. "One question more. Did McQuade write that letter?"
"No."
He picked up his hat. "So much for my dreams! Deny it? Deny calumny of the anonymous order? No! Defend myself against such a lie? No!"
He walked from the room, his head erect. He did not turn to look at her again. The hall door closed. He was gone.
Chapter XIX
Tragedy was abroad that day, crossing and recrossing Williams Street. Tragedy has the same prerogative as love and death—the right to enter the palace or the hovel, into the heart of youth or age. It was not a killing to-day, only a breaking of hearts, that is to say, the first step. Tragedy never starts out on her rounds roughly; she seeks her cause first; she seeks her anonymous letter, her idle hands, her lying tongue; then she is ready. Tragedy does nothing hastily; she graduates her victim.