An American Tragedy

part at least, merely repeated the various things she had said before. They
must wait. All would come out all right in the fall. And Clyde, quite numb
because of his defeat, yet unable to forego or deny the delight of being with
her now, did his best to recover his mood—and think, think, think that in
some way—somehow—maybe via that plan of that boat or in some other
way!
But what other way?
But no, no, no—not that. He was not a murderer and never could be. He
was not a murderer—never—never—never.
And yet this loss.
This impending disaster.
This impending disaster.
How to avoid that and win to Sondra after all.
How, how, how?

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44
Chapter
And then on his return to Lycurgus early Monday morning, the following
letter from Roberta,
DEAR CLYDE:
My dear, I have often heard the saying, "it never rains but it pours," but I
never knew what it meant until to-day. About the first person I saw this
morning was Mr. Wilcox, a neighbor of ours, who came to say that Mrs.
Anse would not be out today on account of some work she had to do for
Mrs. Dinwiddie in Biltz, although when she left yesterday everything
had been prepared for her so that I could help her a little with the
sewing and so hurry things up a bit. And now she won't be here until
tomorrow. Next word came that Mother's sister, Mrs. Nichols, is very
ill and Mother had to go over to her house at Baker's Pond, which is
about twelve miles east of here, Tom driving her, although he ought to
be here to help father with all the work that there is to do about the farm.
And I don't know if Mother will be able to get back before Sunday. If I
were better and didn't have all this work of my own on my hands I
would have to go too, I suppose, although Mother insists not.
Next, Emily and Tom, thinking all is going so well with me and that I
might enjoy it, were having four girls and four boys come here tonight
for a sort of June moon-party, with ice cream and cake to be made by
Emily and Mother and myself. But now, poor dear, she has to do a lot of
telephoning over Mr. Wilcox's phone, which we share, in order to put it
off until some day next week, if possible. And she's just heartsick and
gloomy, of course.
As for myself, I'm trying to keep a stiff upper lip, as the saying is. But
it's pretty hard, dear, I'll tell you. For so far I have only had three small

---

telephone talks with you, saying that you didn't think you would have the
necessary money before July fifth. And to put the finishing touches on it,
as I only learned to-day, Mamma and Papa have about decided to go to
my Uncle Charlie's in Hamilton for over the fourth (from the fourth to
the fifteenth) and take me with them, unless I decide to return to
Lycurgus, while Tom and Emily visit with my sister at Homer. But, dear,
I can't do that, as you know. I'm too sick and worried. Last night I
vomited dreadful and have been half dead on my feet all day, and I am
just about crazy tonight. Dear, what can we do? Can't you come for me
before July third, which will be the time they will be going? You will
have to come for me before then, really, because I just can't go up there
with them. It's fifty miles from here. I could say I would go up there with
them if only you would be sure to come for me before they start. But I
must be absolutely sure that you are coming—absolutely.
Clyde, I have done nothing but cry since I got here. If you were only
here I wouldn't feel so badly. I do try to be brave, dear, but how can I
help thinking at times that you will never come for me when you haven't
written me one single note and have only talked to me three times since
I've been up here. But then I say to myself you couldn't be so mean as
that, and especially since you have promised. Oh, you will come, won't
you? Everything worries me so now, Clyde, for some reason and I'm so
frightened, dear. I think of last summer and then this one, and all my
dreams. It won't make any real difference to you about your coming a
few days sooner than you intended, will it, dear? Even if we have to get
along on a little less. I know that we can. I can be very saving and
economical. I will try to have my dresses made by then. If not, I will do
with what I have and finish them later. And I will try and be brave, dear,
and not annoy you much, if only you will come. You must, you know,
Clyde. It can't be any other way, although for your sake now I wish it
could.
Please, please, Clyde, write and tell me that you will be here at the end
of the time that you said. I worry so and get so lonesome off here all by
myself. I will come straight back to you if you don't come by the time
you said. I know you will not like me to say this, but, Clyde, I can't stay
here and that's all there is to it. And I can't go away with Mamma and

---

Papa either, so there is only one way out. I don't believe I will sleep a
wink to-night, so please write me and in your letter tell me over and
over not to worry about your not coming for me. If you could only come
to-day, dear, or this week-end, I wouldn't feel so blue. But nearly two
weeks more! Every one is in bed and the house is still, so I will stop.
But please write me, dear, right away, or if you won't do that call me up
sure to-morrow, because I just can't rest one single minute until I do
hear from you.
Your miserable ROBERTA.
P. S.: This is a horrid letter, but I just can't write a better one. I'm so
blue.
But the day this letter arrived in Lycurgus Clyde was not there to answer it
at once. And because of that, Roberta being in the darkest and most hysterical
mood and thought, sat down on Saturday afternoon and, half-convinced as she
was that he might already have departed for some distant point without any
word to her, almost shrieked or screamed, if one were to properly
characterize the mood that animated the following:
Biltz, Saturday, June 14th.
MY DEAR CLYDE:
I am writing to tell you that I am coming back to Lycurgus. I simply can't
stay here any longer. Mamma worries and wonders why I cry so much,
and I am just about sick. I know I promised to stay until the 25th or 26th,
but then you said you would write me, but you never have—only an
occasional telephone message when I am almost crazy. I woke up this
morning and couldn't help crying right away and this afternoon my
headache is dreadful.
I'm so afraid you won't come and I'm so frightened, dear. Please come
and take me away some place, anywhere, so I can get out of here and not
worry like I do. I'm so afraid in the state that I'm in that Papa and

---

Mamma may make me tell the whole affair or that they will find it out
for themselves.
Oh, Clyde, you will never know. You have said you would come, and
sometimes I just know you will. But at other times I get to thinking about
other things and I'm just as certain you won't, especially when you don't
write or telephone. I wish you would write and say that you will come
just so I can stand to stay here. Just as soon as you get this, I wish you
would write me and tell me the exact day you can come—not later than
the first, really, because I know I cannot stand to stay here any longer
than then. Clyde, there isn't a girl in the whole world as miserable as I
am, and you have made me so. But I don't mean that, either, dear. You
were good to me once, and you are now, offering to come for me. And if
you will come right away I will be so grateful. And when you read this,
if you think I am unreasonable, please do not mind it, Clyde, but just
think I am crazy with grief and worry and that I just don't know what to
do. Please write me, Clyde. If you only knew how I need a word.
ROBERTA.
This letter, coupled as it was with a threat to come to Lycurgus, was
sufficient to induce in Clyde a state not unlike Roberta's. To think that he had
no additional, let alone plausible, excuse to offer Roberta whereby she could
be induced to delay her final and imperative demand. He racked his brains.
He must not write her any long and self-incriminating letters. That would be
foolish in the face of his determination not to marry her. Besides his mood at
the moment, so fresh from the arms and kisses of Sondra, was not for
anything like that. He could not, even if he would.
At the same time, something must be done at once, as he could see, in
order to allay her apparently desperate mood. And ten minutes after he had
finished reading the last of these two letters, he was attempting to reach
Roberta over the telephone. And finally getting her after a troublesome and
impatient half-hour, he heard her voice, thin and rather querulous as it
seemed to him at first, but really only because of a poor connection, saying:
"Hello, Clyde, hello. Oh, I'm so glad you called. I've been terribly nervous.
Did you get my two letters? I was just about to leave here in the morning if I
didn't hear from you by then. I just couldn't stand not to hear anything. Where

---

have you been, dear? Did you read what I said about my parents going away?
That's true. Why don't you write, Clyde, or call me up anyhow? What about
what I said in my letter about the third? Will you be sure and come then? Or
shall I meet you somewhere? I've been so nervous the last three or four days,
but now that I hear you again, maybe I'll be able to quiet down some. But I do
wish you would write me a note every few days anyhow. Why won't you,
Clyde? You haven't even written me one since I've been here. I can't tell you
what a state I'm in and how hard it is to keep calm now."
Plainly Roberta was very nervous and fearsome as she talked. As a matter
of fact, except that the home in which she was telephoning was deserted at
the moment she was talking very indiscreetly, it seemed to Clyde. And it
aided but little in his judgment for her to explain that she was all alone and
that no one could hear her. He did not want her to use his name or refer to
letters written to him.
Without talking too plainly, he now tried to make it clear that he was very
busy and that it was hard for him to write as much as she might think
necessary. Had he not said that he was coming on the 28th or thereabouts if
he could? Well, he would if he could, only it looked now as though it might
be necessary for him to postpone it for another week or so, until the seventh
or eighth of July— long enough for him to get together an extra fifty for which
he had a plan, and which would be necessary for him to have. But really,
which was the thought behind this other, long enough for him to pay one more
visit to Sondra as he was yearning to do, over the next week-end. But this
demand of hers, now! Couldn't she go with her parents for a week or so and
then let him come for her there or she come to him? It would give him more
needed time, and—
But at this Roberta, bursting forth in a storm of nervous disapproval—
saying that most certainly if that were the case she was going back to her
room at the Gilpins', if she could get it, and not waste her time up there
getting ready and waiting for him when he was not coming—he suddenly
decided that he might as well say that he was coming on the third, or that if he
did not, that at least by then he would have arranged with her where to meet
him. For even by now, he had not made up his mind as to how he was to do.
He must have a little more time to think—more time to think.
And so now he altered his tone greatly and said: "But listen, Bert. Please
don't be angry with me. You talk as though I didn't have any troubles in
connection with all this, either. You don't know what this may be going to

---

cost me before I'm through with it, and you don't seem to care much. I know
you're worried and all that, but what about me? I'm doing the very best I can
now, Bert, with all I have to think about. And won't you just be patient now
until the third, anyhow? Please do. I promise to write you and if I don't, I'll
call you up every other day. Will that be all right? But I certainly don't want
you to be using my name like you did a while ago. That will lead to trouble,
sure. Please don't. And when I call again, I'll just say it's Mr. Baker asking,
see, and you can say it's any one you like afterwards. And then, if by any
chance anything should come up that would stop our starting exactly on the
third, why you can come back here if you want to, see, or somewhere near
here, and then we can start as soon as possible after that."
His tone was so pleading and soothing, infused as it was—but because of
his present necessity only with a trace of that old tenderness and seeming
helplessness which, at times, had quite captivated Roberta, that even now it
served to win her to a bizarre and groundless gratitude. So much so that at
once she had replied, warmly and emotionally, even: "Oh, no, dear. I don't
want to do anything like that. You know I don't. It's just because things are so
bad as they are with me and I can't help myself now. You know that, Clyde,
don't you? I can't help loving you. I always will, I suppose. And I don't want
to do anything to hurt you, dear, really I don't if I can help it."
And Clyde, hearing the ring of genuine affection, and sensing anew his
old-time power over her, was disposed to reenact the role of lover again, if
only in order to dissuade Roberta from being too harsh and driving with him
now. For while he could not like her now, he told himself, and could not
think of marrying her, still in view of this other dream he could at least be
gracious to her— could he not?—Pretend! And so this conversation ended
with a new peace based on this agreement.
The preceding day—a day of somewhat reduced activities on the lakes
from which he had just returned—he and Sondra and Stuart and Bertine,
together with Nina Temple and a youth named Harley Baggott, then visiting
the Thurstons, had motored first from Twelfth Lake to Three Mile Bay, a
small lakeside resort some twenty-five miles north, and from thence, between
towering walls of pines, to Big Bittern and some other smaller lakes lost in
the recesses of the tall pines of the region to the north of Trine Lake. And en
route, Clyde, as he now recalled, had been most strangely impressed at
moments and in spots by the desolate and for the most part lonely character

---

of the region. The narrow and rain-washed and even rutted nature of the dirt
roads that wound between tall, silent and darksome trees—forests in the
largest sense of the word—that extended for miles and miles apparently on
either hand. The decadent and weird nature of some of the bogs and tarns on
either side of the only comparatively passable dirt roads which here and
there were festooned with funereal or viperous vines, and strewn like
deserted battlefields with soggy and decayed piles of fallen and crisscrossed
logs—in places as many as four deep—one above the other—in the green
slime that an undrained depression in the earth had accumulated. The eyes
and backs of occasional frogs that, upon lichen or vine or moss-covered
stumps and rotting logs in this warm June weather, there sunned themselves
apparently undisturbed; the spirals of gnats, the solitary flick of a snake's tail
as disturbed by the sudden approach of the machine, one made off into the
muck and the poisonous grasses and water-plants which were thickly
imbedded in it.
And in seeing one of these Clyde, for some reason, had thought of the
accident at Pass Lake. He did not realize it, but at the moment his own
subconscious need was contemplating the loneliness and the usefulness at
times of such a lone spot as this. And at one point it was that a wier-wier,
one of the solitary water-birds of this region, uttered its ouphe and barghest
cry, flying from somewhere near into some darker recess within the woods.
And at this sound it was that Clyde had stirred nervously and then sat up in
the car. It was so very different to any bird-cry he had ever heard anywhere.
"What was that?" he asked of Harley Baggott, who sat next him.
"What?"
"Why, that bird or something that just flew away back there just now?"
"I didn't hear any bird."
"Gee! That was a queer sound. It makes me feel creepy."
As interesting and impressive as anything else to him in this almost
tenantless region had been the fact that there were so many lonesome lakes,
not one of which he had ever heard of before. The territory through which
they were speeding as fast as the dirt roads would permit, was dotted with
them in these deep forests of pine. And only occasionally in passing near
one, were there any signs indicating a camp or lodge, and those to be reached
only by some half-blazed trail or rutty or sandy road disappearing through
darker trees. In the main, the shores of the more remote lakes passed, were
all but untenanted, or so sparsely that a cabin or a distant lodge to be seen

---

across the smooth waters of some pine-encircled gem was an object of
interest to all.
Why must he think of that other lake in Massachusetts! That boat! The body
of that girl found—but not that of the man who accompanied her! How
terrible, really!
He recalled afterwards,—here in his room, after the last conversation with
Roberta—that the car, after a few more miles, had finally swung into an open
space at the north end of a long narrow lake—the south prospect of which
appeared to be divided by a point or an island suggesting a greater length and
further windings or curves than were visible from where the car had stopped.
And except for the small lodge and boathouse at this upper end it had
appeared so very lonesome—not a launch or canoe on it at the time their