'
MR. DON. 'Good-night, Rogers. Good-night, Major.'
The husband and wife, left together, have not much to say to each other.
He is depressed because he has spoilt things for her. She is not angry.
She knows that he can't help being as he is, and that there are fine
spaces in her mind where his thoughts can never walk with her. But she
would forgive him seventy times seven because he is her husband. She is
standing looking at a case of fishing-rods against the wall. There is
a Jock Scott still sticking in one of them. Mr. Don says, as if somehow
they were evidence against him:
'Dick's fishing-rods.'
She says forgivingly, 'I hope you don't mind my keeping them in the
studio, Robert. They are sacred things to _me_.'
'That's all right, Grace.'
'I think I shall go to Laura now.'
'Yes,' in his inexpressive way.
'Poor child!'
'I'm afraid I hurt her.'
'Dick wouldn't have liked it--but Dick's gone.' She looks a little
wonderingly at him. After all these years, she can sometimes wonder
a little still. 'I suppose you will resume your evening paper!'
He answers quietly, but with the noble doggedness which is the reason
why we write this chapter in his life.
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