out the house if you want me for anything. I
thought of not going up to the office to-day, if that is your wish."

"It is, indeed, my boy," said Mr. Wilcox, and laid a hand on his sleeve.

Charles did not like it; he was uneasy about his father, who did not
seem himself this morning. There was a petulant touch about him--more
like a woman. Could it be that he was growing old? The Wilcoxes were not
lacking in affection; they had it royally, but they did not know how to
use it. It was the talent in the napkin, and, for a warm-hearted man,
Charles had conveyed very little joy. As he watched his father shuffling
up the road, he had a vague regret--a wish that something had been
different somewhere--a wish (though he did not express it thus) that
he had been taught to say "I" in his youth. He meant to make up for
Margaret's defection, but knew that his father had been very happy with
her until yesterday. How had she done it? By some dishonest trick, no
doubt--but how?

Mr. Wilcox reappeared at eleven, looking very tired. There was to be an
inquest on Leonard's body to-morrow, and the police required his son to
attend.

"I expected that," said Charles. "I shall naturally be the most
important witness there."

CHAPTER XLIII

Out of the turmoil and horror that had begun with Aunt Juley's illness
and was not even to end with Leonard's death, it seemed impossible
to Margaret that healthy life should re-emerge. Events succeeded in
a logical, yet senseless, train. People lost their humanity, and took
values as arbitrary as those in a pack of playing-cards. It was natural
that Henry should do this and cause Helen to do that, and then think
her wrong for doing it; natural that she herself should think him wrong;
natural that Leonard should want to know how Helen was, and come, and
Charles be angry with him for coming--natural, but unreal. In this
jangle of causes and effects what had become of their true selves? Here
Leonard lay dead in the garden, from natural causes; yet life was a
deep, deep river, death a blue sky, life was a house, death a wisp of
hay, a flower, a tower, life and death were anything and everything,
except this ordered insanity, where the king takes the queen, and the
ace the king. Ah, no; there was beauty and adventure behind, such as the
man at her feet had yearned for; there was hope this side of the grave;
there were truer relationships beyond the limits that fetter us now. As
a prisoner looks up a