CHAPTER X
Emily would not eat until at noon that day Lavelle commanded her to do so. Watching him, she saw that he ate hardly as much as the little that passed her lips. She did not see him drink at all. Neither had he drunk at the morning meal. As she recalled this his words as he had given her the water in the night came back: "I will straighten it out." This was the way he was "straightening it out." The thought brought tears to her eyes and made her ashamed.
The sense of loneliness that was borne of Elsie's passing had grown upon her with the hours. She was yearning for sympathy and she would have turned to Lavelle, but she sensed that somehow a new barrier had arisen between them—a wall not of her building, but of his. When he spoke to her his voice was very gentle, but neither his
