You must think it all over, and
verify this. You must not commit yourself. But I think you had better
have my address. The ladies are a little too emotional, are they not?
I expect you would sooner come to see me without them."
He laid his card on the little tea-table and stood up.
"Good-night, Mr. Baxter."
Laurie took his hand, and looked for a moment into the kind eyes.
Then the man was gone.
II
That was a little while ago, now, and Laurie sitting over breakfast
had had time to think it out, and by an act of sustained will to
suspend his judgment.
He had come back again to the state I have described--to nervous
interest--no more than that. The terror seemed gone, and certainly the
skepticism seemed gone too. Now he had to face Maggie and his mother,
and to see the grave....
Somehow he had become more accustomed to the idea that there might be
real and solid truth under it all, and familiarity had bred ease. Yet
there was nervousness there too at the thought of going home. There
were moods in which, sitting or walking alone, he passionately desired
it all to be true; other moods in which he was acquiescent; but in
both there was a faint discomfort in the thought of meeting Maggie,
and a certain instinct of propitiation towards her.
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