We conversed for nearly an hour. Our conversation was intermittent; there were long pauses in it, and wanderings from one subject to another. This was occasioned by my mother's condition; it was not possible for her to keep her mind upon one theme, and to exhaust it.
"You looked among your father's papers, Gabriel?"
"Yes, mother."
"What did you find?" She seemed to shrink from me as she asked this question.
"Only his Will, and a few unimportant papers."
"Nothing else?"
"Nothing."
"Gabriel," she said, presently, "I wish you to promise me that you will make, in years to come, a faithful record of the circumstances of your life, and of your secret thoughts and promptings." She paused, and when she spoke again appeared to lose sight of the promise she wished to exact from me. "You are sure your father left no special papers for you to read after his death?"
"I found none," I said, much moved at this iteration of a mystery which was evidently weighing heavily upon her.
"Perhaps," she murmured, "he thought silence kindest and wisest."