“Oh, surely you must have cousins—even half a dozen. Why, I possess half a hundred.”
“If I have, I have never heard of them.”
“Do you mean to say that you have no relations?”
“None that I know of. My father had an only brother in the navy. He was drowned years ago, and he himself lived in India so long that he lost sight of all his connections.” (I did not mention my mother. Why should I tell him that she had been disowned by her family?) “I had not seen my father since I was eight years old.”
“Then I saw him, and knew him well, quite recently—knew him better than you did, if I may say so, Miss Hayes, for, of course, two men have more in common than a man and a little girl in pinafores. He was a rare good sort.”
“Yes, I believe he was. I wish he was alive now with all my heart. It seems so hard that people in the prime of life are cut off, and old men and women who have lived their lives out, and are tired of existence, drag on wearily year after year.”
“Yes, there’s my poor father,” said Mr. Somers; “his bodily health is good—it is the health of a young man—whilst his mind is dying.”
I had heard of that, but felt it only polite to express sympathetic surprise.
“He was in a railway accident years ago, and it’s coming against him now. And how is Mrs. Hayes?” he inquired, rather abruptly.