Penrod was never
brilliant, or even successful, save by inspiration.
At four o'clock he came into the house, still nebulous, and as he
passed the open door of the library he heard a man's voice, not
his father's.
"To me," said this voice, "the finest lines in all literature are
those in Tennyson's 'Maud'--
"'Had it lain for a century dead,
My dust would hear her and beat,
And blossom in purple and red,
There somewhere around near her feet.'
"I think I have quoted correctly," continued the voice nervously,
"but, at any rate, what I wished to--ah--say was that I often
think of those ah--words; but I never think of them without
thinking of--of--of YOU. I--ah--"
The nervous voice paused, and Penrod took an oblique survey of
the room, himself unobserved. Margaret was seated in an easy
chair and her face was turned away from Penrod, so that her
expression of the moment remained unknown to him. Facing her, and
leaning toward her with perceptible emotion, was Mr. Claude
Blakely--a young man with whom Penrod had no acquaintance, though
he had seen him, was aware of his identity, and had heard speech
between Mrs.
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