Grace and Irene had worn hats on the tragic adventure and their long
dark cloaks covered their party dresses so that their entrance into
the interurban car awakened little interest in the half-dozen dozing
passengers. Fortunately Grace had her purse and paid the fares. The
swift rush of the car exerted a quieting effect upon them. Irene had
wrenched her shoulder when the machine leaped into the ditch, but Grace
had escaped with only a few scratches. They conferred in low tones,
still dazed by their close contact with death.
“I ought to have insisted on going home earlier. But I did the best I
could. Tommy wouldn’t budge. Tell me that I did the best I could!”
“Of course you did! We should never have gone--any of us!” said Grace.
“I’m as much to blame as any one. But Tommy would have gone anyhow, you
know he would.”
“Ward’s wonderful,” said Irene. “I’ll never forget him as he stood
there beside Tommy as we left. Those men loved each other; and Tommy
was _good_, Grace. I’m glad I had it out with him--about quitting I
mean. He was sober then; perfectly all right. It was just before you
and Ward came back that he began drinking crazily. When I told him I
thought it was all wrong and that I wanted to quit he talked to me in
the finest way. He said he wouldn’t let me think I could be better than
he was and he was going to live straight the rest of his life. But
Tommy would never have quit. There would always have been some girl;
and he just had to have his parties. I suppose there’s no use worrying
about that!”
“No,” Grace consoled her, “things just have to be. You can’t change
anything. Ward and I said good-bye to each other tonight. So that’s all
over.”
“I’m not so sure,” Irene replied after a deliberate inspection of
Grace’s face. “I wouldn’t count much on Ward giving you up. Love is a
strange thing. You’ll go on loving each other and breaking your hearts
about it and then some day you’ll meet and things will begin all over
again. I’ve always been pretty cynical about these things, but I know
love when I see it. It’s----”
“Don’t, Irene!” whispered Grace, a sob in her throat. “I can’t bear it!
To think of Tommy----”
Her hand stole out and clasped Irene’s. The events of the night had
made upon both an impression that never could be effaced. Aware of
this, silence held them until the lights of the station flashed upon
the windows.
Moore was on the platform, and they found a quiet corner of the waiting
room where Irene told the story of the accident. John expressed no
surprise, made no criticism; merely said that he was proud that they
had thought of him. Trenton had suggested that they ask Moore to visit
the newspaper offices and then go to Kemp’s house--Mrs. Kemp was still
away--and notify the servants. John’s practical mind had considered
every aspect of the matter after his brief talk with Craig over the
telephone and he had already dispatched the coroner to the scene of the
accident that there might be no delay or subsequent criticism.
“The sooner you both get home the better,” he said. “We’ll decide now
that you were both with me all evening. I’ll account for my knowledge
of the accident by explaining to the newspapers that Mr. Kemp’s
chauffeur called me on the telephone after trying to get Judge Sanders,
who’s Kemp’s lawyer and an old friend. It happens that the judge left
for Washington tonight. I think that covers it all.”
It was not until Grace had crept into bed that she was able to think
clearly. It was like a hideous dream that Kemp was dead--that she
had seen him die. His death obscured the memory of her parting with
Trenton, or blending with it, became a part of the dissolution of all
things. Alone in the dark, remorse stole upon her like a nightmare.
From the hour that she had met Kemp and Trenton a doom had followed
her. In a few short months she had played havoc with her life. She
groped back to her days at the University--happy days, they were; days
of clean wholesome living and buoyant aspiration. And she never could
be the same care-free girl again.
It was not till near dawn that she slept, to be wakened by her mother a
little before the prompting of the alarm clock.
“Something awful’s happened, Grace. Thomas Kemp died last night, on the
way home from his farm. There was an accident to his car but the paper
says he died of heart disease. Mr. Trenton was with him. Your father’s
terribly upset; he doesn’t know how it will affect his prospects. It’s
a strange part of it that only yesterday Kemp closed a deal for the
purchase of the Cummings Company. The paper says he’d gone out to the
farm with Mr. Trenton to talk over the merger.”
It was necessary for Grace to hear Kemp’s death discussed in all
its bearings at the breakfast table. The talk was chiefly between
her mother and Ethel, Durland merely confirming or correcting, when
appealed to, their statements as to items of the dead man’s history.
They speculated fruitlessly as to the fate of Kemp’s business
interests, and how much he was worth and whether he had left large sums
to charity.
Grace read the account of the accident and the long biographical sketch
of Kemp while this was in progress. Trenton and Moore had managed the
thing well. Trenton’s statement as to the manner of his friend’s death
bore every mark of veracity, and it was fortified by the coroner’s
report and a statement from Kemp’s physician.
“I suppose,” remarked Ethel, “that Irene Kirby will be terribly
shocked. It’s a wonder she wasn’t with him. They were always gadding
about the country together. I’m relieved, Grace, that you weren’t mixed
up in this mess.”
“Don’t speak so to your sister, Ethel,” admonished Mrs. Durland. “There
are things about Mr. Kemp I never knew. It seems he gave large sums to
some of our needy institutions and wouldn’t let it be known. And he was
beautiful to all his employees. It’s not for us to say he wasn’t a good
man.”
V
“Well,” said Irene, the day after Kemp’s funeral, “I hope Tommy knows
all the fine things that have been said about him. I cried when I
read about the poor people who went to his house just to look at him
again--people he’d helped in their troubles for years, and you can be
sure he always did it with a smile. I met Ward as I was coming down
this morning. He was on his way to Judge Sanders’s office and didn’t
see me till I spoke to him. You’d think he’d lost his own brother! He
asked about you and said to tell you not to worry about anything. And
he smiled in that wistful way he has. He said he might be kept here
some time.”
“Oh, I hope not!” Grace cried, and her eyes filled with tears.
She was already trying to accustom herself to the idea that they were
never to meet again and the prospect of encountering him filled her
with mingled hope and dismay. A few days later when Kemp’s will was
published her heart bounded as she read that the testator had appointed
Trenton the managing trustee of Kemp’s industrial enterprises, and
that he would in all likelihood become a resident of Indianapolis. His
picture was published, with a laudatory account of his career. The
purchase of the Cummings concern, which was consummated on the day of
Kemp’s death, greatly increased the responsibilities of the trustee,
who was to serve for a period of ten years.
It was with confused sensations of happy pride and poignant heartache
that Grace read all this. At home it was necessary constantly to
play a part, to feign indifference as to Trenton’s suddenly attained
prominence, while her mother and Ethel reviewed daily all the
potentialities of the situation as it affected Stephen Durland, who
stolidly refrained from expressing any opinion as to what bearing
Kemp’s death might have on his personal affairs.
The complexities of her life seemed to Grace enormously multiplied.
Trenton was there--in town--no doubt walking at times the streets
she traversed going to and from her work, and she could not see
him--must never see him again! If only the family affairs were less
perplexing--Roy’s future, clouded by his marriage, dominated all the
domestic councils--she could leave; go where the remembrance of him
would be less an hourly torture.
In combating her longing to see him she sought comfort in the thought
that his new duties would help him to forget; and she wanted him to
forget. With his nature he was sure to be profoundly affected by his
friend’s death and the confidence Kemp had reposed in him even from
the grave. She found a certain luxury of sorrow in these thoughts; she
wanted him to be happy, even if his happiness were to be won only by
forgetting her.