"Some way Cynthia heard and she came home to comfort me. I think that when she stood with me beside Dick's grave she was glad she had done what she had done and felt a kind of peace. Roger was still gone but it would not have mattered. It was then that we carried these wedding things up here and locked them in this old square trunk with the brass nail-heads. And we thought that life for us both was over.
"Cynthy's father was glad to have her home. He sold the hotel and never went near it. He tried in every way to make up to Cynthy and his wife. For Cynthy's mother grieved about it all long after Cynthy had learned to smile again. And that nearly killed Cynthy's father. Some folks claimed it really did worry Mrs. Churchill to death, for she died the spring after Dick was buried.
"After that Cynthia took her father traveling, for he was very nearly heartbroken over his wife's death. It was somewhere in England that they met your father, John. Of course, I can understand how a man like your father must have loved Cynthy on sight. But she never could understand it. She thought she was all through with love. She wrote and told me how she had explained all about Roger and how he had said it made him love her all the more. She tried to fight him but strong men are hard to deny. He had a hard time of it, I imagine, but he won her at last and took her away to India. She wrote me when you were born and for some years after, but toward the end, when she was sick so much, I think my letters made her homesick.
"Roger came back. His stepsister got into trouble and died, leaving little David. Roger took him and raised him in memory of the son he knew he might have had. When he found Cynthia was married he had that stone put in the cemetery. He explained the idea to me.
"'The girl, Cynthia, was mine and I killed her. She is dead and it is to the memory of her sweetness that I have erected that stone. The woman, Cynthia, is another man's wife.'
"So that, then, is the history of that trunk. The thing, John, that is killing little Jim Tumley is the thing that worried your grandmother to death, nearly broke your mother's heart and certainly embittered her youth, that sent your grandfather into exile and made a widow of me. It robbed Roger Allan of the only woman he could love.
"Since that day a great many of us have learned to fight it. And there are now any number of men in Green Valley who are opposed to it and who even vote the prohibition ticket. But Green Valley is still far from understanding that until the weakest among us is protected none of us are safe.
"Some day perhaps the women will cease worrying. But before that day comes many here will pay the price. And it is usually the innocent who pay. Now let's put these memories back before they tucker me out completely."
Cynthia's son stood spellbound. He stared at the faded pictures and the little silver ring. Nan was pinning up the wedding dress and weeping openly and unashamed. It was the sight of her quiet tears that brought him back to earth.
"Oh—Nan—don't. Don't grieve about this evil thing. We're going to fight it and fight it hard. We shall save Jim Tumley yet and purify Green Valley."