"You'll do nothing!" The child smiled fearlessly. "Your bark is worse than your bite, brother John. But I'm going. I'll come back, though. I'll be over to clean up and cook something for you. You won't come back to our old shack, I know."
When she had left he went into the cottage, but he did not light the gas again. The darkness seemed more suitable to his mood. He sat down on the edge of his and Tilly's bed. His massive hand sank into her pillow. It was past his supper hour, but he had no desire to eat. The sheer thought of the kitchen where his young wife had worked, somehow suggested her death. A little round metal clock on the mantel was ticking sharply. He got up and wound it, as usual, at that hour. He went into the sitting-room. Here he sat down, lurched forward in unconscious weakness, and then, swearing impatiently, he steadied himself. He remained there only a minute. Rising, he went into the dining-room, felt about, as a blind man might, for a chair, and sank into it. Crossing his arms on the table, he rested his head on them. Had he been a weaker man he might have pitied himself. He had always contended that a man who could not bear pain and adversity had a "yellow streak" in him. He had once had a painful operation performed without an anesthetic, and he now told himself that he simply must master the things within and without him which had combined to overthrow him. He ground his teeth together. He clenched his fingers till the nails of some of them broke.
He closed his eyes. He tried to imagine that he was becoming drowsy and that he would soon sleep, but a thousand pictures floated through his brain and dug themselves in like burrowing animals. Chief among them was a view of Whaley striding about the Square, uttering slobbering anathemas against him. Another scene was that of Tilly's receiving the revelation he himself had shrunk from making. He saw the blight fall on her bonny face and her calm and inevitable consent to abandon him forever. And yet how could he bear that—exactly that? He groaned against the smooth surface of the table. He was ashamed of his frailty, for the mastery of himself seemed farther off, almost an impossibility.
The iron latch of the gate clicked. A heavy step grated on the gravel walk. He sat up straight and listened. The cast-iron door-bell rang. There was a pause, then a step sounded in the hall. Some one was entering unbidden and stalking into the house.
"Oh, John—Johnny, my boy! Where are you?" It was Cavanaugh's voice filled with fluttering grief, tenderness, dismay.
"Here I am!" John did not rise. "Here, in the dining-room."
"But the light—the light. Why don't you—"
Cavanaugh broke off as he stood in the doorway. He paused there for a moment, as if wondering what state a light would reveal the crouched form of his friend to be in.
"I don't want a light, Sam," John muttered. "You can have one if you want it. Here are some matches—but, no, I'll light up. When I came in I was so tired that I sat down here a minute, and—well, I must have—have dropped asleep. But what the hell's the use to lie to you?" He struck a match and held it to the gas-jet over the table beneath the gaudy porcelain shade. His writhing face, in the sudden flare of light, was white, holding a tint even of green. He sank back into his chair. "No, I won't lie, Sam. Besides, if you haven't already heard you will soon enough."
"I have heard," Cavanaugh admitted. "I heard it at home from a neighbor. Then I went to the Square to make sure, and—"