She was in her sitting-room, trying to write
a letter to Mrs. Betts's sister about the boy mentioned in his mother's
last words. He was not at the farm, thank God!--that she knew. His
stepfather had sent him at Easter to a good preparatory school.
It seemed to help her to be doing this last poor service to the dead woman.
And yet in truth she scarcely knew what she was writing. Her mind was torn
between two contending imaginations--the thought of Mrs. Betts, sitting
beside her dead husband, and waiting for the moment of her own death; and
the thought of Newbury. Alternately she saw the laboratory at night--the
shelves of labeled bottles and jars--the tables and chemical apparatus--the
electric light burning--and in the chair the dead man, with the bowed
figure against his knee:--and then--Newbury--in his sitting-room, amid
the books and portraits of his college years--the crucifix over the
mantelpiece--the beautiful drawings of Einsiedeln--of Assisi.
Her heart cried out to him. It had cried out to him in her letter. The
thought of the agony he must be suffering tortured her. Did he blame
himself? Did he remember how she had implored him to "take care"? Or was it
all still plain to him that he had done right? She found herself praying
with all her strength that he might still feel he could have done no other,
and that what had happened, because of his action, had been God's will, and
not merely man's mistake.
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