“Yes. It doesn’t matter much. But that seems to be the obvious place. If I get tired of it there I’ll come back in a day or two, and go west. I think maybe a taste of ranch life might help some. But I can’t stay here. You know, Farrar, that’s impossible.”
“I understand. I too must leave the city. Conditions here make it imperative.”
“And where will you go?”
“God knows! I have no plans.”
Barry looked at his companion pityingly. In the midst of his own grief he had a heart of sympathy for the defeated and despairing rector. For a few moments there was silence between them. Then Barry spoke up again.
“You know, Farrar, this thing has left me in a whirl. I feel as though I were still whirling. I try to stop, and get out of it, and get my head, but I can’t. There’s so much about it all that I don’t understand.”
“I don’t wonder. The whole thing is a terrible mystery.”
“Not that I’m blaming her, you know. I couldn’t do that. She wasn’t to blame for anything. Why, do you know, I never even blamed her for being fond of you. And of course I didn’t charge it up to you. Nobody does, Farrar. You can rest easy on that score. It was just one of those things that neither of you could help.”
“Thank you, Barry!”
“And that reminds me. That night when I saw her last—it was last Sunday; God in heaven! but it seems a year—well, that night she asked me to do her one favor. She said she was going away. She said if you ever found out what she said on the factory steps that day of the riot, I should tell you that it was true; I should tell you that because she loved you she was going to drop out of your life forever—drop out—of your life—forever.”