The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Cross-Cut, by Courtney Ryley Cooper,
Illustrated by George W. Gage

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Title: The Cross-Cut

Author: Courtney Ryley Cooper

Release Date: December 13, 2006 [eBook #20104]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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THE CROSS-CUT

by

COURTNEY RYLEY COOPER

With Frontispiece by George W. Gage

[Frontispiece: Carbide pointing the way, he turned back, pushing the
tram before him.]

Boston
Little, Brown, and Company
1921
Copyright, 1921,
by Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved
Published May, 1921

TO

G. F. C.

I'VE THREATENED YOU WITH A DEDICATION

FOR A LONG TIME AND HERE IT IS!

THE CROSS-CUT

CHAPTER I

It was over. The rambling house, with its rickety, old-fashioned
furniture--and its memories--was now deserted, except for Robert
Fairchild, and he was deserted within it, wandering from room to room,
staring at familiar objects with the unfamiliar gaze of one whose
vision suddenly has been warned by the visitation of death and the
sense of loneliness that it brings.

Loneliness, rather than grief, for it had been Robert Fairchild's
promise that he would not suffer in heart for one who had longed to go
into a peace for which he had waited, seemingly in vain. Year after
year, Thornton Fairchild had sat in the big armchair by the windows,
watching the days grow old and fade into night, studying sunset after
sunset, voicing the vain hope that the gloaming might bring the
twilight of his own existence,--a silent man except for this, rarely
speaking of the past, never giving to the son who worked for him, cared
for him, worshiped him, the slightest inkling of what might have
happened in the dim days of the long ago to transform him into a