She went in breathless, and sat down, for she could not stand. Hoosanee, who was standing, with arms crossed, as dignified and well-dressed as usual, awaiting his master's commands, made her a deep salaam. She pointed to the inner room, whereupon he retired, closing the door of communication.
By this time Tom was outside. 'My dear mother,' he said, noticing, with regret, her pallor and agitation. 'You mustn't really fatigue yourself in this way! Come!' kissing her. 'Don't you know that I want to have my rosy little mother back as soon as possible? Let me take you to your room!'
'Presently, dear, presently,' she murmured. 'But shut the door first; I have something to say to you.'
'Won't to-morrow do?'
'No, Tom. It must be now—to-night. While I can, while I dare——'
'Mother, what do you mean? You are dreaming.'
She pressed her hand to her brow. 'God knows I think so myself,' she said. 'Often, very often, I say, "You are dreaming: there never was anything so hideous done; and for you to do it—you! It is impossible!" and then,' throwing aside her lace shawl and showing the parcel on her lap, 'I look at this, and I know that it is true.'
She stopped, Tom had turned deadly pale. 'Give it to me!' he said. She placed it in his hands. He sat down and opened it slowly, his mother watching him with oh! such pitiful eyes. There it lay before him, just as he had seen it last—the legacy of the dead, which he had so strangely, and, as he believed, so hopelessly lost.
For a few moments after his discovery he did not so much as look up. He dared not even look what he felt.
His silence and abstraction wounded his poor mother more than words, even stern words, could have done. Too pained to weep, she sat gazing out before her with stony eyes. He was noting meanwhile, with a curious pang, how the very arrangement of the papers had not changed. There were the manuscripts in Persian and Arabic and Hindi, as he had thrown them together in his boyish wrath and disappointment; and above them was the sealed roll, unopened still, that, if he had mustered courage to open it, would, as he believed, have given him a key to a hundred mysteries.