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Dickie rubbed the smoke from his eyes and read: "I am going away from Millings. And I am not coming back. Amelia may have the things I have left. I don't want them." This statement was addressed to no one. "She has gone to New York," thought Dickie. His confused mind became possessed with the immediate purpose of following her. There was an Eastern train in the late afternoon.
He whistled incessantly through his teeth. Except for this, they were both silent. "Were you coming to Millings?" asked Sheila at last. She was of the world where silence has a certain oppressive significance. She was getting used to her peculiar physical position and found she did not have to cling so desperately. But in a social sense she was embarrassed.
He left the railroad at Millings, hired a horse, crossed the great plain above the town and braved the Pass, dangerous with overbalanced weights of melting snow. There, on the lonely Hill, he had his first encounter with that Arch-Hinderer.
"That isn't the pony you rode when you came to Millings," said Sheila. He bent to examine his saddle-girth. "No, ma'am," he said gently. "I've been riding quite a variety of horse-flesh lately. I'll get on first if you don't mind and give you a hand up. You put your foot on mine. The horse will stand." Sheila obeyed, pressing her lips tight, for she was afraid.
She felt a warmth that was almost loving for their gracefulness and gravity and kindness. Here was another breed of man than that produced by Millings. A few minutes later she came to the top of The Pass and looked down into Hidden Creek. Sheila stood and drew breath. The shadow of the high peak, in the lap of which she stood, poured itself eastward across the warm, lush, narrow land.
Sheila had been in Millings a fortnight and had not met the admirable Jim. Her attempt that morning to send the note to Dickie by Jim was exactly the action that led to the painful splitting of her shell. She had seen from her window Sylvester's departure after breakfast.
"But what is the work?" Sheila still held her hand against her forehead. Hudson laughed his short, cracked cackle. "Jest old-fashioned house-work, dish-washing and such. 'Help' can't be had in Millings, and Girlie and Babe kick like steers when Momma leads 'em to the dish-pan. Not that you'd have to do it all, you know, just lend a hand to Momma. Maybe you're too fine for that?" "Oh, no.
Dickie's poems! She was afraid to read them. She could not help but think of his life at Millings, of that sordid hotel lobby ... Newspaper stories yes that was imaginable. But poetry? Sheila had been brought up on verse. There was hardly a beautiful line that had not sung itself into the fabric of her brain.
Nobody sympathised with Mary Jane. 'So unfortunate for Mr. Millings, every one said; 'such a promising young man. Mary Jane was sent away to a great manufacturing city of the Midlands, where work had been found for her in a cloth factory. And there was nothing in that town that was good for a soul to see.
Dickie dressed slowly and dragged himself down to the desk, where very soberly and sadly he gave the key of the linen room to Mary. Then he sat down, turned on the Victor, and lit a cigarette. The "Duluth folks" had gone without any assistance from him. There was nothing to do. It occurred to Dickie, all at once, that in Millings there was always nothing to do. Nothing, that is, for him to do.
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