CHAPTER VII
A RASH ACT
David Lockwin reads the letter of Dr. Tarpion with horror.
"Heavens and earth!" he cries, and pulls at his hair, rubs his eyes and stamps on the floor. "Heavens and earth!" This, an edifice built with the patience and cunning of a lover, must fall to nothing.
He is as dead to Esther as on the day the yawl danced on the shining sands of Georgian Bay.
He is terrified to know his loss. To believe that he was in daily communication with Esther, and that she must ache to know him, has sustained David Lockwin in his penance.
The crime he committed, he feels, has been atoned in this year of lover's agony. That agony was necessary--in order that Esther might be gradually prepared for the revelation.
She has not been prepared. The labor must begin again, and on new lines.
The receiver of the Coal and Oil Trust Company's Institution this day declares a dividend of 10 per cent. The lover may draw over $7,000--a magnificent estate. It seems greater to him than the wealth of the Indies or the Peruvians seemed to the early navigators.
He sells his belongings to a second-hand dealer. He hastens his departure. The folks at Walker street can get another book-keeper. Robert Chalmers is going to San Francisco. Easy to lie now after the practice of nearly two years.