Mary Roberts Rinehart

“ Before Harrison Miller and Doctor Reynolds left him to rest, David called Lucy in, and put his plea to all of them.
“It is my hope,” he said, “to carry on exactly as though Dick might walk in to-morrow and take his place again. As I hold to my belief in God, so I hold to my conviction that he will come back, and that before I—before long. ”

“ There was another question in David's mind, but he did not put it. He sat, with the patience of his age and his new infirmity, waiting for Lucy to bring Harrison Miller, and had it not been for the trembling of his hands Bassett would have thought him calm and even placid.
During the recital that followed somewhat later David did not move. He sat silent, his eyes closed, his face set.
“That's about all,” Bassett finished. “He had been perfectly clear in his head all day, and it took headwork to get over the pass. ”

“ What we'd better say is simply that Dick was called away on business connected with some property in the West. They may not believe it, but they'll hardly disprove it.”
So the benevolent conspiracy to protect Dick Livingstone's name was arranged, and from that time on the four of them who were a party to it turned to the outside world an unbroken front of loyalty and courage. Even to Minnie, anxious and red-eyed in her kitchen, Lucy gave the same explanation while she arranged David's tray. ”