Jack remained silent, and withdrew a little farther into the shadow. It was Morton Rutherford who spoke now.
“Did you not once tell me, Everard, in the old college days, that Mr. Cameron had lost a son also?”
“Yes,” said Houston, with a sigh. “That was a far heavier blow for them than the death of their daughter. He was their joy and pride, their hearts were bound up in him.”
“Ah,” said Jack, in a voice almost cold in its even calmness. “I remember that Miss Cameron,––as I knew her,––had a brother. Is he also dead?”
“We are compelled to believe that he must be dead,” Houston answered, after a pause, in a tone of deep sadness. “He left home soon after his sister’s death, and we have never heard from him since, though his parents searched for him, not in this country alone, but in others as well.”
“I beg your pardon for having alluded to it, Everard,” said Rutherford, “you never told me the particulars, and I did not realize they were so painful.”
“No apologies are necessary among us three friends,” Houston replied. “Guy’s parents and I are the only living human beings who know, or ever will know, the reason for his leaving as he did. My uncle spent vast sums of money and employed detectives all over the world in his efforts to find him, and to let him know that the old home was open to him, and would always be just what it had been in the past. But it was of no avail, we could not even get any tidings of him, and uncle, long ago, gave him up for dead, though Aunt Marjorie believes that he is still living, and that he will yet return.”
“The faith of a good woman is sometimes simply sublime,” replied Rutherford, “and a mother’s love is something wonderful. To me it seems the nearest divine of anything we meet on earth.”
There was no response from the figure sitting motionless in the shadow. At that moment it required all the force of his tremendous will power to stem the current of almost uncontrollable emotion, surging across his soul.
But the moments passed, other topics were introduced and discussed, and Jack joined in the conversation as calmly as the others.