“It was he that she meant, not the boy she had lost. She knew him, she understood him better than he did himself, and, heart-broken as she was, she knew how he was going to suffer, and comforted him. ‘My poor boy, my poor, foolish boy!’
“He mended the past, as far as he could, during the next two years, and she seemed happy. He was very gentle, he was very kind to her. He was happy, too, in a new, strange way. But he had learned what it was to suffer through his own fault, and now he was to learn what it was to suffer through no fault of his own, and without the consolation of saying ‘I was wrong! I was to blame!’ At the end of the two years there was another child, and his wife died.”
The four sat silently smoking until Jack Barnes asked:
“And what did he do then, Peter?”
“Who?” said Peter, abstractedly.
“Why, Gentleman Once.”
Peter roused himself.
“Well, I’ve told the story, and it is about time to turn in,” he said. “I can’t say exactly what Gentleman Once did when his wife died. He might have gone down to a deeper depth than Danny’s. He might have risen higher than he had ever been before. From what I knew of his character he would never have gone down an easy slope as Danny has done. He might have dropped plump at first and then climbed up. Anyway, he had the memory of the last two years to help him.
“Then there’s the reformed drunkard who has trained himself to take a drink when he needs it, to drink in moderation—he’s the strongest character of all, I think—but it’s time to turn in.”
The cornet up the creek was playing a march.