The minutes passed. Presently he heard the rumble of the little car as it crossed an elevated trestle a half-mile away, then he saw its lighted windows flitting through the pines and oaks which bordered its tracks. It paused at the terminus. John heard the driver ordering his horse around to the other end, and he retreated into the house. Sam should not catch him there watching as if life or death hung on his report. It was one thing to feel a thing, and another to show it like weak women who weep openly for the dead, or men who cry out in pain like spoiled children. He went into the parlor and sat down. The outer night was very still, so still that he heard Cavanaugh's heavy tread when he was yet some distance away. Thump, thump, thump! John found himself counting the steps.
"Why am I like this?" he questioned himself. "If it is to be, it is to be, and that is the end of it. I can bear it. Why not? Why shouldn't a man bear anything that comes his way—anything, anything, even—even this?"
Cavanaugh was at the gate now. He was noiselessly opening and closing it as if fearful of waking some one asleep in the house.
"Is that you, Sam?" John called out from the parlor.
"Yes, yes, my boy, it is me. I—I thought you might be in bed," and the contractor now tiptoed into the hall and stood in the parlor doorway.
"Oh no, I thought I'd wait up," John replied. "Like a fool, I didn't work to-day, and you see I'm not so tired as I usually am. Come in. Got a match? I'll light the gas. I didn't light it because it is warm to-night and I was smoking. Did you bring any cigars with you? I've hung on to my pipe all day and wouldn't mind a change."
"No, I plumb forgot," Cavanaugh answered. "I had to hurry to get my train. I didn't go about any of the stores, either—too many idle gossipmongers hanging about. Don't light up for me. I—I— We can talk just as well without that. I really ought to be at home. I just thought I'd stop by and—and—"
He went no farther. John heard him feeling about for a chair and saw his dim bulk sink into it. There was no doubting the man's agitation, and why was he agitated? John thought he knew, and bared his mental breast to the hot iron of revelation.
"You say you didn't go out to the work to-day?" Cavanaugh said, irrelevantly enough to explain his mien and mood.
"No, I ought to have gone, but I didn't. I was a fool to hang around here like this, eating my head off and making a smoke-house of my lungs. It is the first day off I've had for a long time."