Minus certain costs and the amount of his indebtedness to Valentine
Simmons, Gordon received the sum of one thousand and sixty dollars for the
sale of his house. He was still sleeping in it, but the day was near when
he must vacate. The greater part of his effects were gathered under a
canvas cover on the porch, Clare's personal belongings were still
untouched in her room. He must wait for the disposition of those until he
had learned the result of the operation.
He heard from Clare on an evening when he was sitting on his lonely porch,
twisting his dextrous cigarettes, and brooding darkly on the mischances
that had overtaken him of late. It was hot and steamy in the valley, no
stars were visible; the known world, muffled in a close and imponderable
cloak, was without any sign of life, of motion, of variety. Gordon heard
footsteps descending heavily from the road, a bulky shape loomed up before
him and disclosed the features of Dr. Pelliter.
He greeted Gordon awkwardly, and then fell momentarily silent. "She sent
you a message, Gordon," he pronounced at last.
"Clare's dead," Gordon replied involuntarily. So far away, he thought, and
alone.... He must go at once and fetch her home. He rose.
"Clare said," the doctor continued, "if your sister's eldest was to come
in to give her the sateen waist." An extended silence fell upon the men;
the whippoorwills sobbed and sobbed; the stream gurgled past its banks.
Then:
"By God!" Gordon said passionately, "I don't know but I'm not glad Clare's
gone--Simmons has got our house, I'm not driving stage ... Clare would
have sorrowed herself out of living. Life's no jig tune."
The doctor left. Gordon continued to sit on the porch; at intervals he
mechanically rolled and lit cigarettes, which glowed for a moment and went
out, unsmoked. The feeling of depression that had cloaked him during the
few days past changed imperceptibly to one of callous indifference toward
existence in general. The seeds of revolt, of instability, which Clare and
a measure of worldly position, of pressure, had held in abeyance,
germinated in his disorganized mind, his bitter sense of injustice and
injury. He hardened, grew defiant ... the strain of lawlessness brought so
many years before from warring Scotch highlands rose bright and
troublesome in him.