“If I should marry,” Roger thought, “my wife’s name would be ’Mrs. Roger Austin.’” He wrote it out on a scrap of paper to see how it would look.  It was certainly very attractive.  “And if it were Barbara, for instance, she would sign her letters ‘Barbara North Austin.’” He wrote that out, too, and, in the lamplight, appreciatively studied the effect from many different angles.  It was really a very beautiful name.

[Sidenote:  Lost in Reverie]

He lost himself in reverie, and it was nearly an hour afterward when he returned to the difficult task of choosing his ten books.  Shakespeare, of course—­fortunately there was a one-volume edition that came within the letter of the law if not the spirit of it.  To this he added Browning.  As it happened, there was a complete one-volume edition of this, too.  Emerson came next—­the Essays in two volumes.  That made four.  He added Vanity Fair, David Copperfield, a translation of the AEneid, and his beloved Keats.  He hesitated a long time over the last two, but finally took down Boswell’s Life of Johnson and the Essays of Elia, neither of which he had read.

[Sidenote:  A Little Old Book]

Behind these two books, which had stood side by side, there was a small, thin book that had either fallen down or been hidden there.  Roger took it out and carefully wiped off the dust.  It was a blank book in which his father had written on all but the last few pages.  He took it over to the table, drew the lamp closer, and sat down.

The gay cover had softened with the years, the pages were yellow, and some of them were blurred by blistering spots.  The ink had faded, but the writing was still legible.  At the top of the first page was the date, “Evening, June the seventh.”

“I have lived long,” was written on the next line below, “but a thousand years of living have been centred remorselessly into to-day.  I cannot go over, though in this house and in the one across the road it will seem very strange.  I knew the clouds of darkness must eternally hide us each from the other, that we must see each other no more save at a great distance, but the thunder and the riving lightning have put heaven between us as well as earth.

“I cannot eat, for food is dust and ashes in my mouth.  I cannot drink enough water to moisten my dry, parched throat.  I cannot answer when anyone speaks to me, for I do not hear what is said.  It does not seem that I shall ever sleep again.  Yet God, pitiless and unforgiving, lets me live on.”

The remainder of the page was blank.  The next entry was dated:  “June tenth.  Night.”

[Sidenote:  No Other Way]

“I had to go.  There was no other way.  I had to sit and listen.  I saw the blind man in the room beyond, sitting beside the dark woman with the hard face.  She had the little lame baby in her arms—­the baby who is a year or so younger than my own son.  I smelled the tuberoses and the great clusters of white lilacs.  And I saw her, dead, with her golden braids on either side of her, smiling, in her white casket.  When no one was looking, I touched her hand.  I called softly, ‘Constance.’  She did not answer, so I knew she was dead.