“The next journey won’t take so long.”
“You’ve been the good angel to me again, Duke. It’s quite a wonder, how you turn up in disaster of mine.... I wonder if I shall ever come to you—but you won’t get down. You wouldn’t even stay ill.”
“You won’t get down again, John, at least, in none of the ways you know about——”
Both men seemed spent beyond words.... Morning saw in the other’s departure the last bit of resistance lifted from his heart’s quest. Betty Berry had come between them. Morning’s conviction had never faltered on the point that Fallows was structurally weak on this one matter.... And so he was going. All that was illustrious in their friendship returned. They needed few words, but sat late before turning in. The cabin cooled and freshened. Each had the thought, before finally falling asleep, that they were at sea again.... And in the morning the thing that lived from their parting was this, from Duke Fallows:
“Whatever you do, John—don’t forget your own—the deepest down man. He is yours—go after him—get him!”
... She was at the top of the stairs when he called the next morning; and he was only half-way up when he saw that she had on her hat and coat and gloves. The day was bitter like the others. He had thought of her fire, and the quiet of her presence. He meant to tell her all about Duke Fallows and the going. It was his thought—that she might find in this (not through words, but through his sense of release from Duke’s antagonism) a certain quickening toward their actual life together. He wanted to talk of bringing her to the cabin—at least, for her to come for a day.
“You will go with me to get the tickets and things. I must start west at once.”
It was quite dark in the upper hallway. Morning reached out and turned her by the elbow, back toward the door of her room. There in the light, he looked into her face. She was calm, her eyes bright. Whatever the night had brought—if weakness it was mastered, if exaltation it was controlled. But she was holding very hard. There was a tightness about her mouth that terrified him. It was not as it had been with them; he was not one with her.
“You mean that you are going away—for some time?”