Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-04-26

90 IT happened that Dick followed Lucy
down the back stairs and ate his meal
~ stealthily in the kitchen. II don't like
you to eat here" she protested.
1--WE eaten in worse places" he said, smil-
ing at her. And sometimes not at all" He
was Immediately sorry for that, for the tears
came to her eyes
He broke as gently as he could the news
that he could not stay, but it was great
blow to her. Her sagging chin quivered plte-
ously, and it took all the cheerfulness he
could summon and all the promises of return
he could make to soften the shock.
"You haven't even seen Elizabeth" she
said at last,
THAT will have to wait until things have
cleared up, Aunt Lucy"
Wont you write her something, then.
Richard? She looks like ghost these days "
Her eyes were on him, puzzled and visit
full. He met them gravely.
81 haven't the right to see her, or write
to her"
And the finality in his tone closed the dis
cussion, that had something of despair in
his face.
For all his earlier hunger he ate very lit
tie, and soon after he tiptoed up the stairs
to David's room. When he came down to
the kitchen later on, he found her still there,
at the table where he had left her, her arms
across it and her face buried in them. On
the chair was the suitcase she had hastily
packed for him, and a roll of bills lay on
the table.
"You must take it," she insisted. ''It
breaks my heart to think-Richard, I have
the feeling that am seeing you for the last
time Then, for fear she had hurt him, she
forced a determined smile. Don't pay any
attention to me. David will tell you that
have said over mad over that I'd never see
you again. And here you are
He was going. He had said good-by to Da-
vid and was going at once. She accepted it
with a stoicism born of many years of hail
and farewell, kissed him tenderly, let her
hand lehger for moment on the rough sleeve
of his coat and then let him out by the kitch-
en- door into the yard. But long after he had
gone she stood in the doorway, staring out.
The evening had shaken Dick profoundly.
David S appearance and Lucy's grief and pre-
monition, most of all the talk of Elizabeth,
had depressed and unnerved him. Even the
possibility of his own innocence was subor-
dinated to an overwhelming yearning for the
old house and the old life.
Through side window, as he went toward
the street, he could see Reynolds at his desk
in the office, and he was possessed by a
fierce jealousy and resentment at his pres
ence there. The laboratory window was dark
and he stood outside and looked at it. He
would have given his hope of Immortality to
have been inside it once more, working over
his tubes and his cultures, his slides and MI
croscope. Even the memory of certain dearly
bought extravagances in apparatus revived in
him, and sent the blood to his head in a wave
of unreasoning anger and bitterness.
He had wild desire to go in the front
door, to confront Reynolds in his SNUG com
placency and drive him out; to demand his
place in the world and take it. He could
hardly tear himself away.
Under a street lamp he looked at his watch.
It was II o'clock and he had a half hour to
spare before train time. Following an i'm
pulse he did not analyze, he turned toward
the Wheeler house. Just, so, months ago, had
he turned in that direction, but with this
difference, that then he went with sort OF
hurried expectancy, and that now he loNered
on the way. Yet that it somehow drew him
he knew Not with the yearning he had felt
toward the old brick house, but the poignan-
cy of long-past happiness. He did not love
but he remembered.
Yet, for a man who did not love, he was