"Yes. The house was watched for a while; I understand they've given it
up now."

In response to questions about his own condition David was almost
querulous. He was all right. He would get well if they'd let him, and
stop coddling him. He would get up now, in spite of them. He was good
for one more fight before he died, and he intended to make it, in a
court if necessary.

"They can't prove it, Dick," he said triumphantly. "I've been over it
every day for months. There is no case. There never was a case, for that
matter. They're a lot of pin-headed fools, and we'll show them up, boy.
We'll show them up."

But for all his excitement fatigue was telling on him. Lucy tapped at
the door and came in.

"You'd better have your supper before it spoils," she said. "And David
needs a rest. Doctor Reynolds is in the office. I haven't told him yet."

The two men exchanged glances.

"Time for that later," David said. "I can't keep him out of my office,
but I can out of my family affairs for an hour or so."

So it happened that Dick followed Lucy down the back stairs and ate his
meal stealthily in the kitchen.

"I don't like you to eat here," she protested.

"I've eaten in worse places," he said, smiling at her. "And sometimes
not at all." He was immediately sorry for that, for the tears came to
her eyes.

He broke as gently as he could the news that he could not stay, but it
was a great blow to her. Her sagging chin quivered piteously, and it
took all the cheerfulness he could summon and all the promises of return
he could make to soften the shock.

"You haven't even seen Elizabeth," she said at last.

"That will have to wait until things are cleared up, Aunt Lucy."

"Won't you write her something then, Richard? She looks like a ghost
these days."

Her eyes were on him, puzzled and wistful. He met them gravely.

"I haven't the right to see her, or to write to her."

And the finality in his tone closed the discussion, that and something
very close to despair in his face.

For all his earlier hunger he ate very little, and soon after he tiptoed
up the stairs again to David's room. When he came down to the kitchen
later on he found her still there, at the table where he had left her,
her arms across it and her face buried in them. On a chair was the
suitcase she had hastily packed for him, and a roll of bills lay on the
table.

"You must take it," she insisted. "It breaks my heart to think--Dick, I
have th