The Precipice, page 209 by Elia W. Peattie
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re my present life with me would be some poor, devil-driven creature like Elena--come to think of it, even she wouldn't! She's off and away with a lover at each elbow!"
"Here!" said Honora imperatively. She held a plate toward him laden with steaming food.
He arose, took it, seated himself, and tried a mouthful, but he had to wash it down with water.
"I'm too tired," he said. "Really, Honora, you'll have to forgive me."
She got up then and lighted the lamp in his bedroom.
"Thank you," he said. "Rest is what I need. It was odd they didn't shoot, wasn't it? I thought every moment that they would."
"You surely didn't wish that they would, Karl?"
"No." He paused for a moment at the door. "No--only everything appeared to be so futile. My bad deeds never turned on me as my good ones have done. It makes everything seem incoherent. What--what would a woman like Miss Barrington make of all that--of harm coming from good?"
"I don't know," said Honora, rather sharply. "She hasn't written. I told her all the trouble we were in,--the danger and the distress,--but she hasn't written a word."
"Why should she?" demanded Wander. "It's none of her concern. I suppose she thinks a fool is best left with his folly. Good-night, cousin. You're a good woman if ever there was one. What should I have done without you?"
Honora smiled wanly. He seemed to have forgotten that it was she who would have fared poorly without him.
She closed up the house for the night, looking out in the bright moonlight to see that all was quiet. For many days and nights she had been continually on the outlook for lurking figures, but now she was inclined to believe that she had overestimated the animosity of the strikers. After all, try as they might, they could bring no accusations against the man who, hurt to the soul by their misunderstanding of him, was now laying his tired head upon his pillow.
All was very still. The moonlight touched to silver the