That fixing the pillow behind
the shaking helpless head, swept away the last traces of the quarrel.
He sat down by the gloomy catafalque of a bed, and when Benjamin
Wright began to say again, "M-m-my f--" he stopped him with a gesture.
"No, father; not at all. He would have gone away anyhow, whether you
had given him the money or not. No; it was my fault," the poor man
said, dropping back into his own misery. "I was hard on him. Even that
last night, I spoke harshly to him. Sometimes I think that possibly I
didn't entirely understand him."
He dropped his head in his hand, and stared blankly at the floor. He
did not see the dim flash of humor in the old eyes.
CHAPTER XXVI
The day that Sam Wright was buried Helena had written to Lloyd Pryor.
She must see him at once, she said. He must let her know when he would
come to Old Chester--or she would come to him, if he preferred. "It is
most important," she ended, "_most_ important." She did not say
why; she could not write of this dreadful thing that had happened.
Still less could she put down on paper that sense of guilt, so
alarming in its newness and so bewildering in its complexity. She was
afraid of it, she was even ashamed of it; she and Lloyd had never
talked about--things like that. So she made no explanation. She only
summoned him with a peremptoriness which had been absent from their
relations for many years.
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