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Updated: June 20, 2025
Mrs. Peyton expended all the ingenuities of tenderness in keeping up her son's courage; and she was seconded in the task by a friend whose acquaintance Dick had made at the Beaux Arts, and who, two years before the Peytons, had returned to New York to start on his own career as an architect.
So he accepted without demur the intimation that when the train reached California he would be forwarded from Stockton with an outfit and a letter of explanation to Sacramento, it being understood that in the event of not finding his relative he would return to the Peytons in one of the southern valleys, where they elected to purchase a tract of land.
It was the first check to his vision of independence and equal footing! Then his invitation was NOT the outcome of a continuous friendship revived by Susy, as he had hoped; the Peytons had known nothing of his meeting with her, or perhaps they would not have invited him.
Nor the next day did there come any explanation. At the Peytons it was still declared that no one had heard from Roger, and for another day the mystery continued, to Celeste's distress and mortification. At last, from Clive Chilton, Sylvia managed to extract the truth. Roger was drunk crazy drunk, and had been taken off by some of the boys to be straightened out.
The Peytons were nearly the last persons expected; and soon after their arrival the funeral procession formed. This part was entirely arranged by the undertaker. The monstrous custom of forbidding ladies to follow their dead had not yet occurred even to the idiots of the nation, and Mr. Peyton and his daughter were placed in the second carriage.
He did not know until later that the Peytons had lost their only child, and Susy comfortably drained this mingled cup of a mother's grief and tenderness without suspicion. "I suppose we'll come up with their train early tomorrow, if some of them don't find us to-night," said Mrs. Peyton, with a long sigh and a regretful glance at Susy.
"I keep that in the back hall," said Jane. "The town does look different up here, but the Peytons' house is just as you remember it even the scarlet sage is in the garden. Miss Nelly plants it still every summer." A lovely light shone in Gabriella's eyes, and Cousin Pussy watched it tenderly, while a smile hovered about the corners of her shrewd though still pretty mouth.
Poor Clarence hesitated, despairingly. Was he to go through the same cross-examination he had undergone with the Peytons? "Yes," he said doggedly, "I am but he's dead, and you know it." "Dead of course." "Sartin." "He's dead." "The Kernel's planted," said the men in chorus. "Well, yes," reflected the Living Skeleton ostentatiously, as one who spoke from experience.
The rude vices of his old associates had made him impatient of the feebler sensual indulgences of the later companions of his luxury, and exposed their hollow fascinations; his sensitive fastidiousness kept him clean among vulgar temptations; his clear perceptions were never blinded by selfish sophistry. Meantime his feeling for Susy remained unchanged. Pride had kept him from seeking the Peytons.
"Lucy is dressing to motor over to Richmond with the Peytons, and your father went out to ride. Harry, why won't you let me go on to New York to see you off?" He was sailing the following week for England, and he had forbidden her to come to his boat, or even to New York, for a last glimpse of him. "Oh, I hate having a scene at the boat, mother. It always makes me feel creepy to say good-bye.
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