Business is going easier now. I can think of it without neglecting
better things. Good-night, Lyn. Tuck your coat up close, the night's
bad."
And then, alone in the warm, bright room, Truedale had a distinct sense
of Lynda having taken something besides herself away. She had left the
room hideously lonely; it became unbearable to remain there and, like a
boy, Conning ran up to the small room next the roof.
He took the old play out--he had not unpacked it since he came from Pine
Cone! He laid it before him and presently became absorbed in reading it
from the beginning. It was after eleven when he raised his tired eyes
from the pages and leaned back in his chair.
"I'm like--all men!" he muttered. "All men--and I thought things had
gone deeper with me."
What he was recognizing was that the play and the subtle influence that
Nella-Rose had had upon him had both lost their terrific hold. He could
contemplate the past without the sickening sense of wrong and shock that
had once overpowered him. Realizing the full meaning of all that had
gone into his past experience, he found himself thinking of Lynda as she
had looked a few hours before. He resented the lesser hold the past
still had upon him--he wanted to shake it free. Not bitterly--not with
contempt--but, he argued, why should his life be shadowed always by a
mistake, cruel and unpardonable as it was, when she, that little
ignorant partner in the wrong, had gone her way and had doubtless by now
put him forever from her mind?
How small a part it had played with her, poor child.
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