Dick's decision to cut himself off from Elizabeth was born of his
certainty that he could not see her and keep his head. He was resolutely
determined to keep his head, until he knew what he had to offer her. But
he was very unhappy. He worked sturdily all day and slept at night out
of sheer fatigue, only to rouse in the early morning to a conviction
of something wrong before he was fully awake. Then would come the
uncertainty and pain of full consciousness, and he would lie with his
arms under his head, gazing unblinkingly at the ceiling and preparing to
face another day.

There was no prospect of early relief, although David had not again
referred to his going away. David was very feeble. The look of him
sometimes sent an almost physical pain through Dick's heart. But there
were times when he roused to something like his old spirit, shouted for
tobacco, frowned over his diet tray, and fought Harrison Miller when he
came in to play cribbage in much his old tumultuous manner.

Then, one afternoon late in May, when for four days Dick had not seen
Elizabeth, suddenly he found the decision as to their relation taken out
of his hands, and by Elizabeth herself.

He opened the door one afternoon to find her sitting alone in the
waiting-room, clearly very frightened and almost inarticulate. He could
not speak at all at first, and when he did his voice, to his dismay, was
distinctly husky.