THE STEADFAST HEART
mare dread of a possible necessity of returning to Rainbow…. It was a foreboding. He felt he would be driven back—drawn back—for was not Dave Wilkins there?
Eight years passed. Angus was graduating from high school—a young man eighteen years of age—a young man vitally, miraculously different from the boy whom Dave Wilkins had taken from the courtroom to the little cubicle over his printing office—yet he was the same, basically the same…. The ten years which had culminated in that courtroom had left upon him indelible traces, traces which must descend with him into the grave.
It was spring. He was looking forward to his graduation as to an accomplishment, proud, because Dave would be proud—that Dave whom he had seen half a dozen times a year. He was almost happy.
Then a postman delivered a letter at Mrs. Bassett’s door, a letter for Angus Burke in a handwriting he had never before seen. He opened it, read it to the signature at the end—and the signature was that of Lydia Canfield!
That night, secretly and without good-byes—lest kindness prevent his departure, he boarded a train for Rainbow. In his heart resided fear such as he had never known, and dread, dread of the town toward which his face was turned….
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