The steamer that took out his men brought in a letter from his wife,
which Lawanne sent up by his Chinese boy. He had written to her the
day before the fire broke out. He could not recall precisely what he
wrote, but he had tried to make clear to her what troubled him and
why. And her reply was brief, uncommonly brief for Doris, who had the
faculty of expressing herself fully and freely.
Hollister laid the letter on the table. The last line of that short
missive kept repeating itself over and over, as if his brain were a
phonograph which he had no power to stop playing:
"I shall be home next week on the Wednesday boat."
He got up and walked across the room, crossed and recrossed it half a
dozen times. And with each step those words thrust at him with deadly
import. He had deluded himself for a while. He had thought he could
beat the game in spite of his handicap. He had presumed for a year to
snap his fingers and laugh in the face of Fate, and Fate was to have
the last laugh.
He seemed to have a fatalistic sureness about this.
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