He stared, his impulse toward her betterment oozing out of him. The whistles of the factories reminded him that he was not to work that day--that he was not to return at dark to Tilly, as had been his wont, and he rose and went back to the bedroom. What was to take place? Why, the day would drag by and Cavanaugh would return with some verdict or other--some report that would settle his fate forever. Leaving Dora at work in the kitchen, he went outside. Desiring not to meet any one, he made his way to the nearest wooded hillside beyond his mother's house and the bleak, white-capped cemetery. From that coign of vantage he saw the town stretched out beneath him. He found a great moss-grown boulder and half lay, half sat on it. The sun climbed higher and higher; the din of the town and its industries beat in his ears, the buzz of a planing-mill, the clang of hammered iron. He ought not to have attempted to pass that particular day in absolute solitude and inactivity, but he knew naught of his own psychology. He watched for the coming and going of trains, telling himself again and again that Cavanaugh's return would decide his fate forever. What would he be informed? How could he face the thing that he had told Cavanaugh actually was to happen--that Tilly and he were to be parted forever? At noon he crept down the hill, keeping himself hidden till the way was clear, then he hastened across the open to the cottage. The child, still there, had given it a semblance of order, and his lunch was on the table. She refused to sit with him, though he asked her in a tone that was full of consideration and that odd, abashed tenderness for her which seemed to be rooting in the loam of pained humility which filled him. "I want to know, brother John," she said, her deep-sunken eyes staring earnestly--"I want to know if you think she is coming back?" He gulped down his hot coffee, and as he replaced his cup in his saucer he said, with a touch of his old fatalistic recklessness: "I don't know. I think not. Sam is up there to-day to--to see about it. He will be back to-night. I don't know. I'm leaving it all to him, and--and to--her."