At last he achieved the petty grave, and set the box in it, and heard the clods clatter on it; filled in and trampled down the shards of soil, and shoveled the snow upon that and made all as seemly as he could.
It was not a job that a gravedigger would boast of, but it was his best. He gazed at the unmarked tomb of the anonymous wayfarer. There should have been some rite, but he could not find a prayer to fit the occasion or his own rebellious mood.
He was so tired, so dog-tired in body and soul that he would have been glad to lie down in his own grave if somebody would have dug him one.
He hobbled and slid back to the house, flung the ax and the shovel into the cellar from the top of the stairs, and went to bed.
The next morning he would have sworn that the whole thing was delirium. At any rate, it was finished.
But it was not finished. Immy woke at last and before her mind was out of the spell of the drug, her arms were groping for her baby, her breast was aching; and when she understood, her scream was like a lightning stroke in a snowstorm.
RoBards could stand no more. He told Patty that she would have to face the ordeal. It was cowardly to leave her, but he must save his sanity or the whole family was ruined.
As he left the house for the barn and the horse he kept there, he was glad to see that snow was fluttering again. That little mound needed more snow for its concealment.
CHAPTER XXXIX
When he reached New York, RoBards had to take his frozen hands to a physician, who managed to save them for him, though there were times when the anguishes that clawed them made him almost regret their possession.