CHAPTER 16It is not my own story I am telling, and if it were I should not be telling it. What there is of myself in these pages relate entirely to other men. I wish I could draw back altogether, but I cannot. For somehow passages in my own life are parts of the story itself. I wonder if my father ever thought when he threw down his hand and left for other spheres, ruined and discredited, of the part that he was yet to play?
I wonder what he would have written on his tomb if he could have returned as Mr. Parton had?
I must have been staring at Mr. Parton’s tomb for some time, when I became aware that I was not alone on West Hill. Though Mr. Parton had hurried down the hill and out of sight, I knew I was not the only one watching by his grave. Quiet places possess peculiar properties unkn
