The sins of the fathers descended to
the children. To suppress Truth was the crowning blasphemy.
Queed did not go. He stayed, resolved, after a violent struggle--it was
all over in the first hour of his discovery--to bear his burden,
shouldering everything that his sonship involved.
By day and by night the little house stood very quiet. Its secret
remained inviolate; the young man was still Mr. Queed, the old one
still Professor Nicolovius, who had suffered the last of his troublesome
"strokes." Inside the darkened windows, life moved on silent heels. The
doctor came, did nothing, and went. The nurse did nothing but stayed.
Queed would have dismissed her at once, except that that would have been
bad economy; he must keep his own more valuable time free for the
earning of every possible penny. To run the house, he had, for the
present, his four hundred and fifty dollars in bank, saved out of his
salary. This, he figured, would last nine weeks. Possibly Surface would
last longer than that: that remained to be seen.
Late on a March afternoon, Queed finished a review article--his second
since he had left the newspaper, four days before--and took it himself
to the post-office.
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