He listened to her pleadings
impassively, stolidly; his attitude was stiffly dignified, and it
seemed to her that, whatever his real frame of mind might be, he had
determined to hide it by maintaining an impenetrably solemn tone and
manner.
"Will, you've come home, and I'm grateful for it. But--but I do think
you're cruel to me. Especially considering what's happened, I did
hope you'd begin to think kinder to me."
"Mavis," he said solemnly, "it is the finger of God." And he repeated
the phrase slowly, with a solemnity that was almost pompous. "It is
the finger of God. If that man had not chanced to die in this sudden
and startling way, I could never have come home to you. It was the
decision I had arrived at before I read of his accident in the paper.
Otherwise you'd 'a' never set eyes on me. Now all I can say is, you
and I must trust to the future. It will be my endeavor not to look
back, and I ask you equally to look forward."
She was certain that this was a set speech prepared beforehand. She
knew so well the faintly unnatural note in his voice when he was
reciting sentences that he had learned by rote: she who had helped in
so many rehearsals before his public utterances could not be mistaken.
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