That Lockwin needed a trip to Washington could not be denied.  That Esther feared to speak of Davy was becoming very noticeable.

Yet no sooner is the husband gone than the woman laments the folly of letting him leave her.

“Go, David,” she had commanded, when she was eager with a desire to keep him or to go with him.

“Shall I accompany you?” she asked, smiling and trembling.

“I must return by a lake steamer, and must see Corkey alone,” the husband had replied.

“A lake steamer!” In October!  The affair alarmed the wife.  She must not let that fear be known.

“Live down your enemies, David!” she had said, as she kissed him.

The words were insincere.  They had a false sound, or an unconvincing sound.  They had jarred on David Lockwin.

“I can outlive my friends easily enough, it seems,” he thought, as he recited the lines of holy fields over whose acres walked those blessed feet.  “I can outlive poor Davy.  I ought to be happy in politics.  It cost me enough!”

And the man had wept.

At home the wife had also wept.  She was afraid she had erred.  She had not been frank.  She accused herself, she defended herself, she noted that it was not yet too late to bid David good-bye, or beg him not to go until he should be stronger.  She called a cab from the livery.  It was Sunday.  There was a long delay.  She entered the vehicle and directed that haste should be made to the Canal street depot.  She approached the bridge.  She feared she had made a mistake.  David would think she was silly.  It was entirely unlike the cold Esther Lockwin to be acting in this manner.

The bridge bell had rung.  The bridge swung.  She had looked at her watch.  The train would leave at five o’clock.  It was 4:50.  Could not the driver go round by the Washington street tunnel?

“It is closed for repairs,” the driver had said—­a falsehood.

When Esther reached the station the train had left.  She had returned to her home to wait in dire anxiety until her husband should reach Washington.  She had written a long letter unfolding her heart to him.

“Come back to me, my darling,” she said in that letter, “and see how happy we shall be!  Let the politics go; that killed Davy and makes us all so unhappy.  You were made for something nobler.  Let us go to Europe once more.  Let us seek out the places where you and I have met in the past.”

It had seemed too cold.

“I love you, I love you.  I shall die without you!  Come home to me and save me!  I love you, I love you!”

So she had written for a page, and was satisfied.

If she might telegraph it!  No! only advertisers and divorced people did that.  She must wait.

He would not reply.  He would come.

The newspaper announces the arrival of the congressman-elect at the
White House.  He had left almost immediately for the West.