"Take it away!" he said curtly.
Kronberg obeyed.
A little later, white and very tired, Carl went up to bed.
Dick went in the morning. At the door, after chatting nervously to
cover the surge of emotion in his heart, he held out his hand. Neither
spoke.
"Carl," choked Wherry at last, meeting the other's eyes with a glance
of wild imploring, "so help me God, I'll run straight. You know that?"
"Yes," said Carl truthfully, "I know it."
An interval of desperate silence, then: "I--I can't thank you, old man,
I--I'd like to but--"
"No," said Carl. "I wish you wouldn't."
And Wherry, wildly wringing his hand for the last time, was off to the
sleigh waiting in the lane, a lean, quivering lad with blazing eyes of
gratitude and a great choke in his throat as he waved at Carl, who
smiled back at him with lazy reassurance through the smoke of a
cigarette.
Carl's day was restless and very lonely. By midnight he was drinking
heavily, having accepted the tray this time and dismissed Kronberg for
the night. Though the snow had abated some the night before, and
ceased in the morning, it was again whirling outside in the lane with
the wild abandon of a Bacchante. The wind too was rising and filling
the house with ghostly creaks.
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