Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-02-17


ID Elizabeth was born of his certainty
- that he could not see her and keep his
head. He was absolutely determined TO keep
his head, until he knew what he had to oHer
her. But he was very unhappy. There was no
prosepct of early relief, although David had
not again referred to his going away. David
was very feeble. The look of him sometimes
sent an almost physical pain through DICK
heart But there were times when he reused
to something like his old spirit. shouted for
tobacco. frowned over his diet tray, and
fought Harrison Miller when he came in to
play cribbage, in much his old tumultuous
manner
Then, one afternoon late in May, when for
four days he had not seen Elizabeth, sudden
ly he found the decision as to their relations
taken out Of his hands, and by Elizabeth her
self.
her sitting alone in the waiting room, clearly
very frightened, and almost inarticulate. He
could not speak at ALL at first, and when he
did his voice, to his dismay, was dlstlnctfJ
husky.
'Is-anything wrong?" he heard himself
fairly croaking.
She got up and then stood looking at him,
very timidly.
THAT'S what I want to know, Dick"
Suddenly he found himself violently angry.
Not at her, of course. At everything.
''Wrong?" he said in a savage voice. eye s.
Everything is wrong
She quite shrank from him His face was
very red
''What have I done, Dick?"
AS suddenly as he had been angry, he was
abject and ashamed, Startled, too.
'sYou?" he said. What have you done?
You're the only thing that's right in wrong
world. You"
He checked himself, put down his bag-he
had lust come in-and closed the door into
Al bp a q safe distance
from her, and folded his arms in order to be
sure that he would not catch her to him and
hold her there.
elizabeth he said gravey eve been a
fool and coward. | stayed away because
I've been in trouble. I'm still in trouble, for
that matter. 1t hasn't anything to do with
you Not directly anyhow
Don't you think it's possible that know
what it isl"
''You do know"
Every impulse in her cried out to try and
comfort him For just moment she saw
him not as a man at all, but as big boy
anxious and hurt. She was so afraid of the
impulse that she became a trife prim and
academic.
s'There is always gossip" she said, land
the only thing one can do is to forget it at
once You ought to be too big for that sort
of thing"
"But-suppose it is true?"
"What difference would it maker"
There may be more than that. don't
know Elizabeth he said, his eyes on hers
81 have always thought-and | can't go to
David now"
He was moved to go on. To tell her of his
lost years, of that strange trick by which his
mind had shut off those hidden years. But
he could not. He had perfectly human fea1
of being abnormal in her eyes.
But greater than that was his new fea1
that something not happy or right lay Dehlno
him under lock and key to his memory.
81 want you to know this, Dick, she said
''That nothing, no gossip or any thing, car
make any difference to me. And I've been ter
ribly hurt We've been such friends. YOU
I've oeen lying awake at night, worrying.
That went to his heart first, and then tC
his head. This might be ALL all he was ever
to have. This hour, and this precious ant
tender child, so brave in her declaration 81
simple and direct all his world in that lm
tation mahogany chair.
you're all I've GOETHE one real thing II
world that's going to smash. think L love
you more than Cod
The same mood, of accepting what he hat
without question, and of refusing to looI
ahead, actuated him for the next few days
He was Incredibly happy.
He even began to wonder if he had reat
into the situation something that was mo-
there and in this his consciousness of David''
essential rectitude helped him. David coul(
not do a wrong thing, an unworthy one
He wished he were more like David.
The new humility extended to his love fol
Elizabeth.
He refused to think. He was content fol
time simply to feel, to be supremacy happy
to live each day as it came and not to look
ahead And the old house seemed to bright
en- with him. Never had Lucy's window-boXes
been so bright, or Minnie's bread so light;
the sun poured into Davids sickroom ano
turned the nurse so dazzling white in her uni
form that David declared he was suffering
from snow blindness.
And David himself was improving rapidly
With the passage of each day he felt more
secure The reporter from the Times Repub
lican-if he were really on Dicks trail he
would have come to see him, would have told
him the story No. That bridge was safely
crossed. And Dick was happy David, lying
in his bed, would listen and smile family
when he came whistling into the house or
leaped up the stairs two at time; when he