He sat by the fire in the grip of a great despair.
He had lost ten years out of his life, his best years.
And he could not go back to where he had left off.
There was nothing to go back to but shame and remorse.
He looked at Bassett, lying by the fire, and tried
to fit him into the situation. Who was he, and
why was he here? Why had he ridden out at night
alone, into unknown mountains, to find him?
As though his intent gaze had roused the sleeper,
Bassett opened his eyes, at first drowsily, then wide
awake. He raised himself on his elbow and listened,
as though for some far-off sound, and his face was
strained and anxious. But the night was silent,
and he relaxed and slept again.
Something that had been forming itself in Dick’s
mind suddenly crystallized into conviction.
He rose and walked to the edge of the mountain wall
and stood there listening. When he went back
to the fire he felt in his pockets, found a small
pad and pencil, and bending forward to catch the light,
commenced to write... At dawn Bassett wakened.
He was stiff and wretched, and he grunted as he moved.
He turned over and surveyed the small plateau.
It was empty, except for his horse, making its continuous,
hopeless search for grass.
David was enjoying his holiday. He lay in bed
most of the morning, making the most of his one after-breakfast
cigar and surrounded by newspaper and magazines.
He had made friends of the waiter who brought his
breakfast, and of the little chambermaid who looked
after his room, and such conversations as this would
follow:
“Well, Nellie,” he would say, “and
did you go to the dance on the pier last night?”
“Oh, yes, doctor.”
“Your gentleman friend showed up all right,
then?”
“Oh, yes. He didn’t telephone because
he was on a job out of town.”
Here perhaps David would lower his voice, for Lucy
was never far away.
“Did you wear the flowers?”
“Yes, violets. I put one away to remember
you by. It was funny at first. I wouldn’t
tell him who gave them to me.”
David would chuckle delightedly.
“That’s right,” he would say.
“Keep him guessing, the young rascal.
We men are kittle cattle, Nellie, kittle cattle!”
Even the valet unbent to him, and inquired if the
doctor needed a man at home to look after him and
his clothes. David was enormously tickled.
“Well,” he said, with a twinkle in his
eye. “I’ll tell you how I manage
now, and then you’ll see. When I want my
trousers pressed I send them downstairs and then I
wait in my bathrobe until they come back. I’m
a trifle better off for boots, but you’d have
to knock Mike, my hired man, unconscious before he’d
let you touch them.”
The valet grinned understandingly.
“Of course, there’s my nephew,”
David went on, a little note of pride in his voice.
“He’s become engaged recently, and I notice
he’s bought some clothes. But still I don’t
think even he will want anybody to hold his trousers
while he gets into them.”
