Yes, the usual thing. Only this message was longer than usual, he had wasted several words. She crumpled up the paper and threw it into the fire.... She had intended to talk to him tonight about doing over the house. Then there was her father coming to see him. Well, he couldn't be ill if he was staying away indefinitely. He was just—busy.... She would send word to her father not to come, it was bad weather, a steady driving rain that threatened to last all day.
She took up her pen and looked at the page before her—sat a long time looking at it. In spite of the glowing fire her hands grew cold, too cramped finally to hold the pen, and she dropped it.
Why should she care? All that was over long ago—buried.
Only sometimes it seemed that nothing ever could be buried securely. It was as if the long grown-over ground should stir, and something that had been buried too soon, still alive....
X
Two days passed, without word from Laurence. He seldom stayed away as long as this without sending some message, except when he was on circuit. The third day, as Mary was driving back from the meeting where she had read her paper on Æschylus, she saw Jim on the street; he threw up his hand, came running and jumped into the carriage.
"I was coming for you, Mr. Lavery's at the house—Father's ill—he wants you to go to the city. They think it's typhoid." He leaned forward and told the coachman to drive faster. "You can get the six-thirty in if you hurry."
He could tell her no more in answer to her questions. He looked very sober. As they turned in through the gates he said, "Don't you think I'd better go with you? You'll want somebody besides that fellow."