CHAPTER XV
THE TIDE TURNS
A gray morning, wet and close, whose very atmosphere was death to hope. James did hope, nevertheless, with all the refreshed energy of his being. Hope came as soon as he started to wake up, before he began to feel the cramps in his limbs, before he had time to rub his eyes and wonder what had happened.
A hot bath, and then breakfast. Physical alleviations; he was humiliated to realize they did make a difference, even to him. He shuddered at the thought of how he had patronizingly envied Aunt Selina for being helped by them last night, much as he shuddered at the remembrance of having once dared to pity Beatrice....
But the present was also with him, and the present was even harder to face than the past. Hope sprang eternal, but so did certainty. One might have thought that they would have neutralized each other's effects and left a blank, but as a matter of fact they only doubled each other's torments. The moment breakfast was over James started off for the station to set one or the other at rest.
He went straight to the press room, which was only just open; he had to wait for the agent to arrive. When he came he was able to tell James nothing new, but he conducted him to a departmental manager. He was no more satisfactory, but he undertook to make every possible inquiry. Leaving James in an outer office he called various people to him, got into telephonic communication with others and ended by calling up Stamford and then Boston. But James could guess the result from his face the moment he reentered the room.
"Nothing?" he asked.
"Nothing. But don't give up yet."
James walked slowly down the corridor toward the elevator. It was a long corridor, dark and empty; James could not see the end of it when he started. The sound of his feet echoed hollowly along the dim walls. Altogether it was rather an eerie place, not at all suggestive of a modern office building. Much more, it seemed to James as he walked on, like life.... A blind alley, the end of which was in shadow, where one must walk alone and in almost total darkness. A place where one's footsteps echo with painful exactness—one must walk carefully lest the sound of their irregularity should ring evilly in one's ears and pierce unharmoniously into those mysterious chambers alongside, perhaps even into other corridors, other people's corridors....
He roused himself from his reverie with a jerk, but his mood remained on him, translated into a larger meaning. He was alive; no matter what had happened to Beatrice, he was still alive, with a living person's duties and responsibilities—and chances. Beatrice, even though cut off in the bloom of her youth, had succeeded in making a person of herself, justifying her existence, supplying a guiding light to some of those who walked in greater darkness than herself. He had not as yet done that. Well, he must. He would. Beatrice's gift to him should not be wasted. In a flash he felt his strength and his manhood return to him. He looked into the future with a humble yet unflinching gaze; hope and certainty had lost their terrors for him. If Beatrice had died, he would thank God that it had been given him to know her and do his best to translate her spirit into earthly terms. If by any impossible chance she still lived—well, he could do nothing to make himself worthy of such happiness, but he would do his best.