"It's like old times, mother," she said, tenderly.
Aunt Rob smiled a little sadly; when a daughter is married it can never be again quite like old times in the home in which she was born and reared. Something is missing, something gone. It is not that the old love is dead, but that a new love is by its side, with new hopes, and mayhap new fears, to make up the fulness of life. The mother looks back upon her own young days, and realises now what she did not think of then, that the child she nestled at her bosom is going through the changes she has experienced; and so, if her daughter is happily mated, she thanks God--but now and then a wistful sigh escapes her.
In the afternoon Dick came to see them, and they chatted in the sitting room in which they had passed so many happy hours. He was not in a bright mood; dreading every minute that the murder would be discovered and made public, he felt that it would be almost a relief when the cloud burst, as burst it must before long. Knowing what he knew, the suspense was maddening.
"Now, Dick," said Aunt Rob, "I've got something to say to you. Reginald and Florence are here, as you know, but that doesn't make any difference in your room. There it is, ready for you, as it has been all through, and I shall begin to think there's some secret reason for your keeping away from us if you don't occupy it at once. I'll take no denial, Dick."
"Let us wait a bit, aunt," said Dick. "I'll sleep here now and then, and take my meals here, but it wouldn't be fair to Mrs. Pond for me to run away after having been in her house only a few days. So, like the kind dear soul that you are, let it remain as it is for a little while. What's that?"
It was a newsboy shouting at the top of his voice, and selling copies of "The Little Busy Bee" as fast as he could hand them out.
"It's a murder!" cried Aunt Rob. "And do you hear that? Hark! 'Horrible discovery!' Merciful heavens! 'Catchpole Square!' Where Reginald's father lives!"
The two men ran out of the house like mad, and were just in time to tear the last copy from the boy's hands. A glance at the headlines was sufficient.
"You were right, Dick, you were right," said Uncle Rob. "Samuel Boyd's murdered!"
They looked at each other with white faces.