Mary Roberts Rinehart

“ But he looked up at her, and was instantly roused to full attention by her face.
“You've had some news,” he said.
“Yes, David. There's a little news. Don't count too much on it. Don't sit up. David, I have heard something that makes me think he is alive. Alive and well.”
He made a desperate effort and controlled himself.
“Where is he?”
She sat down beside him and took his hand between hers.
“David,” she said slowly, “God has been very good to us. I want to tell you something, and I want you to prepare yourself. We have heard from Dick. He is all right. He loves us, as he always did. ”

“ And—he is downstairs, David.”
He lay very still and without speaking. She was frightened at first, afraid to go on with her further news. But suddenly David sat up in bed and in a full, firm voice began the Te Deum Laudamus. “We praise thee, O God: we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. All the earth doth worship thee, the Father everlasting.”
He repeated it in its entirety. At the end, however, his voice broke.
“O Lord, in thee have I trusted—I doubted Him, Lucy,” he said.
Dick, waiting at the foot of the stairs, heard that triumphant paean of thanksgiving and praise and closed his eyes. ”

“ That she was yesterday, and Elizabeth was long ago.
“I can't argue it down,” he finished. “I've tried to, desperately. It's a—I think it's a wicked thing, in a way. And God knows all she ever got out of it was suffering. She must loathe the thought of me.”
David was compelled to let it rest there. He found that Dick was doggedly determined to see Beverly Carlysle. After that, he didn't know. No man wanted to surrender himself for trial, unless he was sure himself of whether he was innocent or guilty. ”

“ When she came back almost immediately, with the familiar tray and the familiar food, he was sitting where she had left him. He had spent the entire time, had she known it, in impressing on his mind the familiar details of the room, to carry away with him.
She stood beside him, a hand on his shoulder, to see that he drank the milk slowly.
“I've got the fire going,” she said. “And I'll run up now and get your clothes. I—had put them away.” Her voice broke a little. “You see, we— You can change in your laboratory. Richard, can't you? If you go upstairs he'll hear you.” ”

“ They're a lot of pin-headed fools, and we'll show them up, boy. We'll show them up.”
But for all his excitement fatigue was telling on him. Lucy tapped at the door and came in.
“You'd better have your supper before it spoils,” she said. “And David needs a rest. Doctor Reynolds is in the office. I haven't told him yet.”
The two men exchanged glances.
“Time for that later,” David said. “I can't keep him out of my office, but I can out of my family affairs for an hour or so.”
So it happened that Dick followed Lucy down the back stairs and ate his meal stealthily in the kitchen. ”