“Well, Colfax,” said the old lawyer, “you’re a lucky man. Everybody safe and sound and a very ugly old colonial house burned flat to the ground, with plenty of insurance. Now that you have the new appointment and are going to leave town, it makes a very convenient sale for you.”
“Hush!” said his daughter. “The hot coffee is more important. You had better bring the baby down with you. We have sent for milk and nursing-bottles. There, John, that is the baby. You’ve never seen it. Wasn’t I right? Isn’t it pretty?”
“My God!” cried the Judge.
“What!” said they.
“I must be tired,” he answered. “It has been a strain. It was nothing.”
We went out onto the porch for a moment when we were below, and stood out of sight behind the vines. The street was still crowded with curious people, and there was a great black hole with the elm trees, scorched brown, drooping over it—a hole filled with the ashes that were all that was left of the home. Men were playing a hose into it and every time they moved the stream, here or there, a great hiss and cloud of vapor came up. Some one had hung the Judge’s straw hat on a lilac bush and there it advertised itself. But the Judge drew himself up and stiffened his body and set his teeth, as he looked at that scene, and I knew then he would not break down again, but would play the game he had begun to the end.
Indeed, I felt his fingers at my sleeve.
“I shall slip away to get the locket,” he whispered. “Do you understand? Just a moment. Tell them I will be right back.”
He went around the house and I into the hall.
“Judge Colfax will return in a minute,” I explained.