She turned and went, half blindly, into the empty street.
She thought he was at the early service. She did not see him, but she had once again the thing that had seemed lost forever, the warm sense of his thought of her.
He was there, in the shadowy back pew, with the grill behind it through which once insistent hands had reached to summon him. He was there, with Lucy's prayer-book in his hand, and none of the peace of the day in his heart. He knelt and rose with the others.
“O God, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the birth of Thy Son—”
XLVIII
David was beaten; most tragic defeat of all, beaten by those he had loved and faithfully served.
He did not rise on Christmas morning, and Dick, visiting him after an almost untasted breakfast, found him still in his bed and questioned him anxiously.
“I'm all right,” he asserted. “I'm tired, Dick, that's all. Tired of fighting. You're young. You can carry it on, and win. But I'll never see it. They're stronger than we are.”
Later he elaborated on that. He had kept the faith. He had run with courage the race that was set before him. He had stayed up at night and fought for them. But he couldn't fight against them.