Out of those quiet hours, with Natalie at the theater or reading
up-stairs in bed, Clayton got the greatest comfort of his life. He
would neither look back nor peer anxiously ahead.
The past, with its tragedy, was gone. The future might hold even
worse things. But just now he would live each day as it came,
working to the utmost, and giving his evenings to his boy. The
nights were the worst. He was not sleeping well, and in those
long hours of quiet he tried to rebuild his life along stronger,
sterner lines. Love could have no place in it, but there was
work left. He was strong and he was still young. The country
should have every ounce of energy in him. He would re-build the
plant, on bigger lines than before, and when that was done, he
would build again. The best he could do was not enough.
He scarcely noticed Natalie's withdrawal from Graham and himself.
When she was around he was his old punctilious self, gravely kind,
more than ever considerate. Beside his failure to her, her own
failure to him faded into insignificance.
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