Jud arose and went into the bar and whispered to Billy Buch. Then he came back and sat down and talked of other things. But all the time he was watching Edward Conway—the yearning look—turned half pleadingly to the bar—the gulpings which swallowed nothing.
Presently Jud looked up. He heard the tinkle of glasses, and Billy Buch stood before them with two long toddies on a silver waiter. The ice tinkled and glittered in the deep glasses—the cherries and pineapple gleamed amid it and the whiskey—the rich red whiskey!
“My treat—an' no charges, gentlemen! Compliments of Billy Buch.”
Conway looked at the tempting glass for a moment in the terrible agony of indecision. Then remorse, fear, shame, frenzy, seized him:
“No—no—I've sworn off, Billy—I'll swear I have. My God, but I'm a Conway again”—and before the words were fairly out of his mouth he had seized the glass and swallowed the contents.
It was nearly dark when Helen, quitting the mill immediately on its closing, slipped out of a side door to escape Richard Travis and almost ran home across the fields. Never had she been so full of her life, her plans for the future, her hopes, her pride to think her father would be himself again.
“For if he will,” she whispered, “all else good will follow.”
Just at the gate she stopped and almost fell in the agony of it all. Her father lay on the dry grass by the roadside, unable to walk.
She knelt by his side and wept. Her heart then and there gave up—her soul quit in the fight she was making.
With bitterness which was desperate she went to the spring and brought water and bathed his face. Then when he was sufficiently himself to walk, she led him, staggering, in, and up the steps.