He watched for the carrier all the daylight hours. His mail was light, and the coming infrequent. There had been time for an answer, and the watcher could no longer compose himself to write. All day he sat in the doorway, looking across the two mounds, down the road whence the carrier would come.
And at last he came. Far down the road toward town one morning a familiar moving figure grew distinct. De Young watched as though fascinated. He wanted to shout, to laugh, to cry. With an effort that sent his finger nails deep into his palms, he kept quiet, waiting.
A letter was in the carrier’s hand. Struck by the look on De Young’s face, the postman did not turn, but stood near by watching. The exile, once the immovable, seized the missive feverishly, then paused to examine. It was a man’s writing he held, and he winced as at a blow, but with a hand that was nerved too 107 high to tremble, he tore open the envelope. He read the few words, and read again; then in a motion of weariness and hopelessness indescribable, hands and paper dropped.
“My God! And she never knew,” he whispered.
When next the carrier came, he shaped the third mound.
ARCADIA IN AVERNUS
“For they have sown the wind, and
they shall reap the whirlwind.”