"You are really going?" Brenton asked.
"I am."
"When?"
"I promised to be in Boston, early in the week."
Again there came the silence. This time, it lasted until, with an
ostentatiously natural step, Katharine turned away and left the room.
Then, for an instant, Brenton stood staring after her. An instant
later, he had dropped down at his desk and buried his face within the
circle of his clasped arms, covering his ears to shut out the echo of
his wife's accusing words. He tried to drive off from his mind the ugly
question how far he himself had been blamable for this thing; how far
he might have steadied Katharine by forcing her to go with him into all
the secrets of his life. Instead, he tried to fix his mind upon the
approaching ruin of his home; but he only could succeed in thinking
about the passing of his baby boy, about the way the weazen little arms
had shot upward, waving in joyous and insistent recognition. After all
their tedious, aching search for truth, Katharine's search and his, had
it been given to that little child to find out and acknowledge the
eternal verities, hidden for ever from their older eyes?
And, meanwhile, his world was waxing empty. First his beliefs had gone;
and then his baby boy, his hope; and now, last of all, was to go his
wife who should have been his final trust. The past was finished. Ahead
of him was nothing but a lonely road which led nowhere and ended in
nothing. Of what use for a tired man like himself to force himself up
and on along it? Of what use to deny his share of domestic blame,
merely because his intentions had been of the most unselfish? His head
sank lower in his clasping arms.
It was so that Doctor Keltridge found him when, an hour later, he came
marching in at the unlatched front door.