Coming hurrying back to the hall, she saw her husband in the porch, a splendid dark figure with the last rays of yellow sunlight behind him. He paused bare-headed on the threshold, obviously not aware of her presence, and she was about to speak to him when he startled her by dropping on his knees and praying aloud.
"O merciful Powers, give me grace and strength to lead a healthy fearless life in this house."
XIII
The Dales were beginning to prosper now, but their first winter had been an anxious, difficult time.
Dale had made a common mistake in his calculations, and experience soon taught him that what is known as good-will, the most delicate and sensitive of all trade-values, can not by a mere stroke of the pen be transferred from one person to another. Solid customers turned truant; the business went down with terrifying velocity; and old Bates, who loyally came day after day to advise and assist, spoke with sincere regret. "William, I never foretold this. I must see what can be done. I'll leave no stone unturned." And he trotted about, touting for his successor, tramping long miles to beg for a continuance of favors that had unexpectedly ceased, but usually returning sadly to confess that his efforts had again been fruitless. They were gloomy evening hours, when the old and the young man sat together in the office by the roadway; and at night Mavis used to hear her sleeping husband moan and groan so piteously that she sometimes felt compelled to wake him.
"What is it?" Awakened thus, he would spring up with a hoarse cry, and be almost out of the bed before she was able to restrain him.
"It's nothing, dear. Only you were in one of your bad dreams, and I simply couldn't let you go on being tormented."
"That's right," he used to mutter sleepily. "I don't want to dream. I've enough that's real."
"Don't you worry, dear old boy. You're going to pull through grand—in the end. I know you are. Besides, if not—then we'll try something else."
She always murmured such consolatory phrases until he fell asleep once more.