I know it already. But I've four thousand a year and
that's so far off from what I need to live in my way--that a thousand
or so one way or the other wouldn't make any more difference than a
snowflake in hell. I owe you something anyway--God knows!--for
supplying the model that sent you to perdition. If you hadn't paid me
the ingenuous compliment of unremitting imitation, you'd have been a
sight better off. . . . And you're going to marry the white little
girl with the beautiful eyes and the wonderful, sweet forgiving decency
of heart, and bring up a crowd of God-fearing youngsters, make over the
old doctor's farm for him--and likely his life--and begin afresh.
That's all I ask. Now to bed with you."
Wherry wrung Carl's hand, and after a passionate, incoherent storm of
gratitude stumbled blindly from the room.
The old house grew very quiet. Presently to the crackle of the fire
and the wild noise of the wind outside was added the soft and
melancholy lilt of a flute. There was no mockery or impudence in the
strain to-night. It was curiously of a piece with the creaking
loneliness of the ancient farmhouse and so soft at times that the clash
of the frozen branches against the house engulfed it utterly.
Sombre, swayed by a surge of deep depression, the flutist lay back in
his chair by the fire, piping moodily upon the friend he always carried
in his pocket.
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