"Yes. How is the girl?" John asked.
"Dead," was the answer, and the doctor stood erect and walked away.
For several hours John remained on the shore. He saw the Italians bearing the girl's body away, followed by the women and children. Then a thought came to him. There was a dense strip of sloping wooded land between the river and the nearest street, and in the midst of it stood a tall oak. At the foot of this tree he would bury Binks's remains. The oak would be a landmark that he could easily single out again. He found some newspapers, and, wrapping up the body in them, he dug a grave and put his pet into it.
The sun was going down above the New Jersey cliffs when the rite was ended. The great disk was as red as living coals of fire. A tree with shooting branches and stark trunk three miles away was clearly outlined across its face. A big excursion-steamer bound for Albany was passing. The surface of the river was sprinkled with sail-boats and varicolored canoes. From somewhere on the water came the clear, joyous tones of a cornet. Some player was putting his soul into his music. John walked down to one of the boat-houses. Men were fishing from the float. At a crude bar he bought a cigar and lighted it. He asked about the fishing of one of the fishermen and apathetically listened while the man talked of rods, reels, lines, sinkers, and bait. John did not want to go home. The thought of the hot, close, and lonely house, in his present frame of mind, was repellent. He wondered if he was giving way to sickly sentimentality, for he had a desire to pass that night in the wood in solitary vigil over the grave of his loved companion.
Presently he shrugged his shoulders and started homeward. "Be a man, John Trott!" he said, with closed lips. "Why shouldn't Binks die?—everybody has to die sooner or later. What does it matter? The only thing that matters is to bear your burden like a soldier and a man."
CHAPTER VI
Dear John [so ran the first letter from Cavanaugh after the latter returned to Ridgeville]—I hardly know how to begin this letter. Since I got home I declare everything here seems awfully tame. That was a wonderful visit I had as I look back on it. I wish it could have gone on forever. I am glad I saw you, for a lot of reasons. You were lonely and blue, my boy. Even your partner spoke to me about you. He said since Dora left that you was really in danger of a nervous breakdown. Mrs. McGwire and her oldest girl said the same thing. They were all worried about you, and so am I.
I've got a confession to make, and the sooner it is made the better I'll feel. John, you know how a town like this one is. The folks here love to gossip about anything they can pick up, and I'm going to tell you that when it got circulated among some of your old work friends that I'd gone to New York a few of them began to nose about and make inquiries. They thought it was such a peculiar thing, you see, for a man of my age and habits to do that they kept talking and talking and joking and what not. Then, as might have been expected, Todd Williams, who you remember thought he saw you on the train in New York, put his finger into the pie. He told it about that he was now more sure than ever that it was you he saw on the train and that I had gone up there to see you. That did the job, and I don't know what to do about it. Folks meet me on the street and ask about you as if it was a settled fact that you never died in that wreck, and, with their eyes staring straight into mine, I don't know what to do or say. John, I don't know how to lie with a sober face. The more I shifted about and tried to get out of it the more they believed it, till now, no matter what I say, they only laugh and make fun and say that I'm keeping something back. So please tell me what to do. The truth is that the facts, if they get out, will never harm you in any way. It is now so long since you left that only a very few that used to know you are alive or here. The fever for going West struck most of your old friends and they moved away. I really think that I'd advise you not to keep the truth back any longer. Questions are asked about what came of Dora, and if I say that she is married and gone away it will end all sorts of idle speculations.
If I've got you into a fix in this matter please forgive me, for it all came about through no intention of mine. If I could lie as straight as some contractors can beat down the price of material or wages, I'd have got you out of this, but I'm getting old and I'm like a baby in the hands of these mouthing, tattling folks. Oh, how I wish you could come down here! You'd not feel as bad about all that has happened if you'd come down and visit me and my wife, and throw it off like an old worn-out coat. What a joy it would be to give you a room and see you seated at our humble board! Think it over, my boy. Life is short at best, and we ought to spend part of it with the folks that really love us, and we love you, John—both of us do.