Full Text Archive

Full Text Archive
https://www.fulltextarchive.com
little--and even so was touched. The bare suggestion of sympathy brought back the old days so
definitely gone forever. If only they could be brought back!
"I don't want you to feel distressed about me, though," he went on, before she could say
anything to him. "I'm not through with my fighting. I'll get out of this. I have to go to prison, it
seems, in order to get things straightened out properly. What I would like you to do is to keep up
a cheerful appearance in front of the rest of the family--father and mother particularly. They
need to be cheered up." He thought once of taking her hand, then decided not. She noted
mentally his hesitation, the great difference between his attitude now and that of ten or twelve
years before. It did not hurt her now as much as she once would have thought. She looked at
him, scarcely knowing what to say. There was really not so much to say.
"Will you have to go soon, if you do have to go?" she ventured, wearily.
"I can't tell yet. Possibly to-night. Possibly Friday. Possibly not until Monday. I'm waiting to hear
from Steger. I expect him here any minute."
To prison! To prison! Her Frank Cowperwood, her husband--the substance of their home
here--and all their soul destruction going to prison. And even now she scarcely grasped why!
She stood there wondering what she could do
"Is there anything I can get for you?" she asked, starting forward as if out of a dream. "Do you
want me to do anything? Don't you think perhaps you had better leave Philadelphia, Frank? You
needn't go to prison unless you want to."
She was a little beside herself, for the first time in her life shocked out of a deadly calm.
He paused and looked at her for a moment in his direct, examining way, his hard commercial
business judgment restored on the instant.
"That would be a confession of guilt, Lillian, and I'm not guilty," he replied, almost coldly. "I
haven't done anything that warrants my running away or going to prison, either. I'm merely
going there to save time at present. I can't be litigating this thing forever. I'll get out--be
pardoned out or sued out in a reasonable length of time. Just now it's better to go, I think. I
wouldn't think of running away from Philadelphia. Two of five judges found for me in the
decision. That's pretty fair evidence that the State has no case against me."
His wife saw she had made a mistake. It clarified her judgment on the instant. "I didn't mean in
that way, Frank," she replied, apologetically. "You know I didn't. Of course I know you're not
guilty. Why should I think you were, of all people?"
She paused, expecting some retort, some further argument--a kind word maybe. A trace of the
older, baffling love, but he had quietly turned to his desk and was thinking of other things.
At this point the anomaly of her own state came over her again. It was all so sad and so
hopeless. And what was she to do in the future? And what was he likely to do? She paused half
trembling and yet decided, because of her peculiarly nonresisting nature-- why trespass on his
time? Why bother? No good would really come of it. He really did not care for her any
more--that was it. Nothing could make him, nothing could bring them together again, not even
253 / 312

---