Ah, yes! Why has not this second life brought more joy? The man ponders and questions himself.
"I am Davy's chief mourner, too!" he says, and sobs. "By heaven, it is Davy that has made me unhappy! I thought it was Chicago. I thought it was politics. I thought it was Esther. It must have been Davy!"
"If it were Davy," he says, an hour later, "I have made a mistake."
Down he looks into his heart, whither he has not dared to search before. He is homesick. Nobody loves Robert Chalmers. Nobody respects Robert Chalmers. David Lockwin dead is great and good. How about David Lockwin living?
His hands go deeper in his pockets at this. The motion rustles the newspaper. He strives to shake free of the sheet. His eye rests on the railway timetables.
He falls into profound meditation again. He considers himself miserable. He is, in fact, happy, if absence of dreadful pain and turmoil be a human blessing. At last his eye lights up, and the heavy face grows cheerful.
"I will go to Chicago!" he says.
CHAPTER III
BEFORE THE TELEGRAPH OFFICE
Robert Chalmers is in Chicago this morning of the dedication, and has slept well. He tossed in his bed at New York. He snores at the Western inn.