Richard would not
return to Camden that day, he said. He could not face his acquaintance
there until the first shock was over and they were a little accustomed
to thinking of the calamity which had fallen upon him. So he remained
with his mother, sitting near the window which looked out upon the
railroad track over which Ethie had gone. What his thoughts were none
could fathom, save as they were expressed by the dark, troubled
expression of his face, which showed how much he suffered. Perhaps he
blamed himself as he went over again the incidents of that fatal night
when he kept Ethelyn from the masquerade; but if he did, no one was the
wiser for it, and so the first long day wore on, and the night fell
again upon the inmates of the farmhouse. The darkness was terrible to
Richard, for it shut out from his view that strip of road which seemed
to him a part of Ethie. She had been there last, and possibly looked up
at the old home--her first home after her marriage; possibly, too, she
had thought of him. She surely did, if, as Andy believed, she was alone
in her flight. If not alone, he wanted no thoughts of hers, and
Richard's hands were clenched as he moved from the darkening window, and
took his seat behind the stove, where he sat the entire evening, like
some statue of despair, brooding over his ruined hopes.
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