"Robert, isn't there anything--to do?"
"No."
They had nothing to say to one another. They had made a strange
trio--lonely and outcast by necessity--but now a link had snapped and it
was all over. They stood apart, each by himself. Ricardo, crouching
against the window-sill, pressed his hand to his side as though he were
hurt and bleeding to death. He said, almost inaudibly:
"I've no one. Nobody will ever listen. She believed in me. She was
sure that one day--I would go out--and tell the truth. She knew I
wasn't--a cowardly--beaten, old man."
Robert could not touch her whilst Ricardo stood there crying. Her repose
was too dominating. And if he touched her something terrible and
incalculable might happen. He felt as though he were standing on the
edge of a precipice, and that suddenly he might let go and pitch over.
It had come true at last--his boy's nightmare that had grown up with
him--that only waited for darkness to show itself. Christine had left
him. She was dead, and it seemed that he had no one in the world. For
Francey, loving him as she did, had failed him. But Christine had never
failed him. Never at any time had she asked, "Are you a good little boy,
Robert?" It would never have occurred to her. She was so sure. She had
loved him and, believed in him unfalteringly, and, in her quiet way, died
for him.
Ricardo drew himself up. He plucked at Robert's sleeve. A change had
come over him in the last minutes.
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