“It was his heart—the autopsy showed it had been diseased for years. I insisted on the most careful examination!”
“I dare say. I didn’t come to discuss that. That is your affair. What I have to say concerns me alone. When I offered that night to take whatever blame might follow his death here, it was from no good feelings toward you, but in a spirit of evil. I wanted to place you under a crushing weight of shameful obligation to me—that was it. And I’ve come back to say that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for every hour of anxiety and shame I ever gave you. Come, father, let us be friends!”
Roger Craighill was slow to comprehend what had happened. He tried to get upon his feet, and Wayne caught him and lifted him up, his arm round his father’s shoulders, and it was he who gave the handclasp, vigorous and strong with the strength of his redeemed manhood. He had gone low, but he had risen high. He who had been of the companionship of dragons had come into possession of his own soul. He had still his weaknesses, and he might yet stumble and fall; but for an instant he stood above the clouds, master of himself and drinking deep of clean airs of hope and aspiration.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
“THEY’RE CALLIN’ STRIKES ON ME”
JOE avoided Jean. His days were spent underground, and in the summer evenings when he might have seen her with little trouble, he shunned walks they had known of old together. He heard that she had sold the little cottage that had been her only inheritance from her grandfather, and he knew that this meant the severing of her last tie with the town. The community, rejoicing in her success, whispered the fabulous terms of her professional engagements.
Jean, with her trunk packed, had yet to see him before leaving the valley, and he appeared at the cottage by a characteristic inadvertence, leaning upon the gate as she closed the door for the last time.
“Everybody’s sorry you’re goin’, Jean; but I guess you got to pull out. You’ve outgrown the town and it’s you for the large cities now.”
“I have to go where my work is. I’m going to share another woman’s studio in New York this fall. I’m going first to visit Mrs. Blair in Maine.”
“Sure! York’s the place. The Blairs always go there,” Joe replied, proud of his inner knowledge of the Craighills and their ways. “Walsh and Whiskers blew in yesterday and took my boss to Pittsburg. He said he’d be back in a day or two. He’s the busy little worker when he gets started.”
They stood with a new restraint upon them at the gate that had known their childhood and youth. Joe saw that his reference to Wayne had not been fortunate, and he twisted his cap nervously.