She looked at him. She loved him. She was glad always to be with him. Why did he not come back to her? In that way alone could she save him. If he stayed where he was——
“Let us cheer up, Tom dear. We’re depressed. I wouldn’t have thought that father’s death could depress us so.”
“You know better than that!”
“Is there anything more wrong with us, Tom, than with the world?”
Tom smiled wanly.
“How like a woman that is. However deep we rot, if the world rots as deep, no matter? You women accept the world.... Cornelia, that thought which to you brings consolation, would make me desperate.”
She said: “Perhaps we have not found ourselves, yet, Tom.”
And he: “Father’s death has suddenly set me to thinking where we are: and you to feeling.”
“I am not thinking of father. Ruth’s letter made me think far more of Ruth. Poor wasted Ruth. And Laura—bitter, sick Laura. I think of them.”
“Are they the only victims, Sister?”