“Certainly he is going to stay,” Lucy said, surprised. “This is his home. Where else should he go?”
But David knew. He lay, listening with avid interest to Dick's story, asking a question now and then, nodding over Dick's halting attempt to reconstruct the period of his confusion, but all the time one part of him, a keen and relentless inner voice, was saying: “Look at him well. Hold him close. Listen to his voice. Because this hour is yours, and perhaps only this hour.”
“Then the Sayre woman doesn't know about your coming?” he asked, when Dick had finished.
“Still, she mustn't talk about having seen you. I'll send Reynolds up in the morning.”
He was eager to hear of what had occurred in the long interval between them, and good, bad and indifferent Dick told him. But he limited himself to events, and did not touch on his mental battles, and David saw and noted it. The real story, he knew, lay there, but it was not time for it. After a while he raised himself in his bed.
“Call Lucy, Dick.”
When she had come, a strangely younger Lucy, her withered cheeks flushed with exercise and excitement, he said:
“Bring me the copy of the statement I made to Harrison Miller, Lucy.”
She brought it, patted Dick's shoulder, and went away. David held out the paper.
“Read it slowly, boy,” he said. “It is my justification, and God willing, it may help you. The letter is from my brother, Henry. Read that, too.”