It was a curiosity which Fulkerson himself shared, at least concerning Dryfoos.  “I don’t know what the old man’s going to do,” he said to March the day after the Marches had talked their future over.  “Said anything to you yet?”

“No, not a word.”

“You’re anxious, I suppose, same as I am.  Fact is,” said Fulkerson, blushing a little, “I can’t ask to have a day named till I know where I am in connection with the old man.  I can’t tell whether I’ve got to look out for something else or somebody else.  Of course, it’s full soon yet.”

“Yes,” March said, “much sooner than it seems to us.  We’re so anxious about the future that we don’t remember how very recent the past is.”

“That’s something so.  The old man’s hardly had time yet to pull himself together.  Well, I’m glad you feel that way about it, March.  I guess it’s more of a blow to him than we realize.  He was a good deal bound up in Coonrod, though he didn’t always use him very well.  Well, I reckon it’s apt to happen so oftentimes; curious how cruel love can be.  Heigh?  We’re an awful mixture, March!”

“Yes, that’s the marvel and the curse, as Browning says.”

“Why, that poor boy himself,” pursued Fulkerson, had streaks of the mule in him that could give odds to Beaton, and he must have tried the old man by the way he would give in to his will and hold out against his judgment.  I don’t believe he ever budged a hairs-breadth from his original position about wanting to be a preacher and not wanting to be a business man.  Well, of course!  I don’t think business is all in all; but it must have made the old man mad to find that without saying anything, or doing anything to show it, and after seeming to come over to his ground, and really coming, practically, Coonrod was just exactly where he first planted himself, every time.”

“Yes, people that have convictions are difficult.  Fortunately, they’re rare.”

“Do you think so?  It seems to me that everybody’s got convictions.  Beaton himself, who hasn’t a principle to throw at a dog, has got convictions the size of a barn.  They ain’t always the same ones, I know, but they’re always to the same effect, as far as Beaton’s being Number One is concerned.  The old man’s got convictions or did have, unless this thing lately has shaken him all up ­and he believes that money will do everything.  Colonel Woodburn’s got convictions that he wouldn’t part with for untold millions.  Why, March, you got convictions yourself!”

“Have I?” said March.  “I don’t know what they are.”

“Well, neither do I; but I know you were ready to kick the trough over for them when the old man wanted us to bounce Lindau that time.”

“Oh yes,” said March; he remembered the fact; but he was still uncertain just what the convictions were that he had been so stanch for.

“I suppose we could have got along without you,” Fulkerson mused aloud.  “It’s astonishing how you always can get along in this world without the man that is simply indispensable.  Makes a fellow realize that he could take a day off now and then without deranging the solar system a great deal.  Now here’s Coonrod ­or, rather, he isn’t.  But that boy managed his part of the schooner so well that I used to tremble when I thought of his getting the better of the old man and going into a convent or something of that kind; and now here he is, snuffed out in half a second, and I don’t believe but what we shall be sailing along just as chipper as usual inside of thirty days.  I reckon it will bring the old man to the point when I come to talk with him about who’s to be put in Coonrod’s place.  I don’t like very well to start the subject with him; but it’s got to be done some time.”

“Yes,” March admitted.  “It’s terrible to think how unnecessary even the best and wisest of us is to the purposes of Providence.  When I looked at that poor young fellow’s face sometimes ­so gentle and true and pure ­I used to think the world was appreciably richer for his being in it.  But are we appreciably poorer for his being out of it now?”

“No, I don’t reckon we are,” said Fulkerson.  “And what a lot of the raw material of all kinds the Almighty must have, to waste us the way He seems to do.  Think of throwing away a precious creature like Coonrod Dryfoos on one chance in a thousand of getting that old fool of a Lindau out of the way of being clubbed!  For I suppose that was what Coonrod was up to.  Say!  Have you been round to see Lindau to-day?”

Something in the tone or the manner of Fulkerson startled March.  “No!  I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Fulkerson.  “I guess I saw him a little while after you did, and that young doctor there seemed to feel kind of worried about him.

“Or not worried, exactly; they can’t afford to let such things worry them, I suppose; but ­”

“He’s worse?” asked March.

“Oh, he didn’t say so.  But I just wondered if you’d seen him to-day.”

“I think I’ll go now,” said March, with a pang at heart.  He had gone every day to see Lindau, but this day he had thought he would not go, and that was why his heart smote him.  He knew that if he were in Lindau’s place Lindau would never have left his side if he could have helped it.  March tried to believe that the case was the same, as it stood now; it seemed to him that he was always going to or from the hospital; he said to himself that it must do Lindau harm to be visited so much.  But he knew that this was not true when he was met at the door of the ward where Lindau lay by the young doctor, who had come to feel a personal interest in March’s interest in Lindau.

He smiled without gayety, and said, “He’s just going.”

“What!  Discharged?”

“Oh no.  He has been failing very fast since you saw him yesterday, and now ­” They had been walking softly and talking softly down the aisle between the long rows of beds.  “Would you care to see him?”

The doctor made a slight gesture toward the white canvas screen which in such places forms the death-chamber of the poor and friendless.  “Come round this way ­he won’t know you!  I’ve got rather fond of the poor old fellow.  He wouldn’t have a clergyman ­sort of agnostic, isn’t he?  A good many of these Germans are ­but the young lady who’s been coming to see him ­”

They both stopped.  Lindau’s grand, patriarchal head, foreshortened to their view, lay white upon the pillow, and his broad, white beard flowed upon the sheet, which heaved with those long last breaths.  Beside his bed Margaret Vance was kneeling; her veil was thrown back, and her face was lifted; she held clasped between her hands the hand of the dying man; she moved her lips inaudibly.