Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/90

80 family. The Dallas house, built by Stephen's grandfather, was quiet and unostentatious in appearance, but solid, substantial—a big, square brick affair, painted dull brown. There was something so solid and substantial about everything connected with the Dallases, that people in Reddington supposed them to be infallible, as immune to panics and market fluctuations as an oak to the varying antics of the elements.

This attitude of the people toward the Dallases was partly responsible for their ruin. Stephen's father prized and treasured his reputation for indestructibility. To a man of his special brand of pride, it was galling to allow his fellow citizens even to suspect that the roots of the oak tree were not as healthy as the proud and upstanding trunk signified. And so it was not until the great tree fell—was pulled over by its own weight, and lay sprawling on the ground, a mammoth and pitiful wreck, for every curious passer-by to gape at—that the decayed and rotten condition of the roots was discovered by the astonished public.

When the brief telegram from home reached Stephen (he had completed his college course by this time and had nearly completed his post-graduate course—he had decided to follow in his father's steps and become a lawyer) the message gave no details. Simply stated the fact of his father's sudden death and summoned him home immediately.

It was not until he was within a few hours of Reddington that he learned of the manner of his father's death. He read it in a Chicago paper.

His father had committed suicide! He had locked