"In munition plants, I daresay. To be blown up!"
He winced. The thought of that night the year before, when the plant
went, still turned him sick.
"Don't buy too many things, my dear," he said, gently. "You know how
things are."
"I know it's your fault that they are as they are," she persisted. "Oh,
I know it was noble of you, and all that. The country's crazy about you.
But still I think it was silly. Every one else is making money out of
things, and you--a lot of thanks you'll get, when the war's over."
"I don't particularly want thanks."
Then the door-bell rang in the back of the house, and Buckham answered
it. He was conscious at once that Natalie stiffened, and that she was
watchful and a trifle pale. Buckham brought in a telegram on a tray.
"Give it to me, Buckham," Natalie said, in a strained voice. And held
out her hand for it. When she saw it was for Clayton, however, she
relaxed. As he tore it open, Clayton was thinking. Evidently Natalie
had been afraid of his seeing some message for her. Was it possible that
Natalie--He opened it. After what seemed a long time he looked up. Her
eyes were on him.
"Don't be alarmed, my dear," he said. "It is not very bad. But Graham
has been slightly wounded. Sit down," he said sharply, as he saw her
sway.
"You are lying to me," she said in a dreadful voice. "He's dead!"
"He is not dead, Natalie." He tried to put her into a chair, but she
resisted him fiercely.
"Let me alone. I want to see that telegram."
And, very reluctantly, at last he gave it to her. Graham was severely
wounded. It was from a man in his own department at Washington who had
just seen the official list. The nature of his wounding had not been
stated.
Natalie looked up from the telegram with a face like a painted mask.
"This is your doing," she said. "You wanted him to go. You sent him into
this. He will die, and you will have murdered him."
The thought came to him, in that hour of stress, that she was right.
Pitifully, damnably right. He had not wanted Graham to go, but he had
wanted him to want to go. A thousand thoughts flashed through his mind,
of Delight, sleeping somewhere quietly after her day's work at the camp;
of Graham himself, of that morning after the explosion, and his frank,
pitiful confession. And again of Graham, suffering, perhaps dying, and
with none of his own about him. And through it all was the feeling that
he must try to bring Natalie to reason, that it was incredible that she
should call him his own son's murderer.