Upstairs and down, in, around, and about he drifted, quiet as a cat, avoiding only his wife's bedroom. He had never entered it since their marriage; he did not care to do so now, though the door stood wide. And, indifferent, he turned without even a glance, and traversing the hall, descended the stairs to the library.
For a while he sat there, legs crossed, drumming thoughtfully on his boot with his riding-crop; and after a while he dragged the chair forward and picked up a pen.
"Why not?" he said aloud; "it will save railroad fare—and she'll need it all."
So, to his lawyer in New York he wrote:
"I won't come to town after all. You have my letter and you know what I want done. Nobody is likely to dispute the matter, and it won't require a will to make my wife carry out the essence of the thing."
And signed his name.
When he had sealed and directed the letter he could find no stamp; so he left it on the table.
"That's the usual way they find such letters," he said, smiling to himself as the thought struck him. "It certainly is hard to be original.... But then I'm not ambitious."
He found another sheet of paper and wrote to Hamil:
"All the same you are wrong; I have always been your friend. My father comes first, as always; you second. There is no third."