"That poor boy's father!" sighed Mrs. March. "I can't get his face out of
my sight. He looked so much worse than death."
"Oh, death doesn't look bad," said March. "It's life that looks so in its
presence. Death is peace and pardon. I only wish poor old Lindau was as
well out of it as Conrad there."
"Ah, Lindau! He has done harm enough," said Mrs. March. "I hope he will
be careful after this."
March did not try to defend Lindau against her theory of the case, which
inexorably held him responsible for Conrad's death.
"Lindau's going to come out all right, I guess," said Fulkerson. "He was
first-rate when I saw him at the hospital to-night." He whispered in
March's ear, at a chance he got in mounting the station stairs: "I didn't
like to tell you there at the house, but I guess you'd better know. They
had to take Lindau's arm off near the shoulder. Smashed all to pieces by
the clubbing."
In the house, vainly rich and foolishly unfit for them, the bereaved
family whom the Marches had just left lingered together, and tried to get
strength to part for the night. They were all spent with the fatigue that
comes from heaven to such misery as theirs, and they sat in a torpor in
which each waited for the other to move, to speak.
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