"I suppose I might keep away from her for a while," he said presently.
That really seemed a good idea; the more he thought of it the better he liked it. "I'll go down and stay with Trotty," he said as he scraped the last strip of lather off his face, remembering how fervently Trotty, recovering from a severe illness on the Trotwood estate in North Carolina, had begged him to come down and cheer his solitude. "And I won't come back until I know," he continued. "One must be sure. Absolutely."
He plunged into his bath and the stimulus of the cold water set his brain working faster. "I'll start this very morning. Let's see; I've missed the ten-thirty, but I can catch the twelve-three, if I look alive, and get the three-fifty from New York.... No, on second thoughts, I'd better have lunch and pack comfortably and start this afternoon. That'll be better; it never does to be in too much of a hurry!"
It never did; he became even more convinced of that when he remembered at breakfast the many post-mortem arrangements to be made in connection with the "Beggar's Opera." However, he spent an active afternoon in completing what he could of these and delegating the remainder to subordinates, with the calm explanation that he was called away on business, and started for southern climes the next morning.
As soon as he had telegraphed Trotty and was actually on his way he became inclined to fear he had not done the right thing. It was so confoundedly quiet down there; he would have nothing to do but think about her. He should have plunged himself into some all-absorbing activity; he should have traveled or taken a nine-till-five clerkship or gone to New York for a while. This suspicion continued through his journey and even survived, though in a mangled form, Trotty's enthusiastic welcome of him. But after he had passed a few days among those pine-clad solitudes he began to see that he had done the wisest possible thing. Trotty was required to be out-of-doors practically the whole time, and the two drove endless miles in a dogcart through the quickening oaks and pines, or lay on fragrant carpets of needles, content with mere sensuous enjoyment of the wind and sun, sky and landscape.