Only a pencilled scrawl, but he knew every word of it by heart, and of the burst of excited speech in the Judge's office nothing remained in his mind but the general impression that he had made a fool of himself there. Perhaps he was too familiar with Judith's letter, for the sting he had found there at first was gone from the words. He looked at them dully.
"I can't stand much more," he said aloud.
He said it lifelessly, and with no defiance in his eyes, stating only a wearisome fact. He had seen the Colonel's face through a kind of red mist in the Judge's office, and felt reckless and strong. He did not feel like a hero now. He was tired.
He would hardly have cared just now if you had told him that back in Judge Saxon's office two men who had not moved from their chairs since he left them, and who would not move until several vital points were settled, were discussing something he would not have believed them capable of discussing at such length and with so much feeling—the fortunes of the Donovan family.
He did not care just now for the little sights and sounds of spring that were all around him, the cluster of arbutus leaves at his feet, the faint, nestling bird noises, sweeter than song, and the stir and rustle of tiny, unclassified sounds that were signs of the pulse of spring beating everywhere, of change and growth going on whether human beings perceived or denied it.
"I can't stand any more," said the boy.
Up the cliff to his right, strewn with pine needles that were brown-gold in the sun, a steep and tiny trail led the way to the top of the hill and his rendezvous. Now the boy crushed Judith's letter into his pocket, turned to the trail with a sigh, and began to climb.
CHAPTER TEN
"They won't like it, Judith," said Mrs. Randall for the last time, as she slipped into her evening coat.