The speech was entirely unworthy, and Taylor knew it, and he eased his conscience by adding: “He thought, I suppose, that you would like to be where he had been. I’ve not touched the room he had. All his effects are there—everything he owned, just as he left them. I had given him a room in the house because I liked him (that was the truth), and I wanted him where I could talk to him.”
“I cannot thank you enough for that!” she said earnestly. And then Taylor was forced to lie again, for she immediately asked: “And the mine? It proved to be worthless, I suppose. For,” she added, “that would be just father’s luck.”
“The mine wasn’t what we thought it would be,” said Taylor. He was looking at his boots when he spoke, and he wondered if his face was as red as it felt.
“I am not surprised.” There was no disappointment in her voice, and therefore Taylor knew she was not avaricious—though he knew he had not expected her to be. “Then he left nothing but his personal belongings?” she added.
Taylor nodded.
The girl sat for a long time, looking out over the river into the vast level that stretched away from it.
“He has ridden there, I suppose,” she said wistfully. “He was here for nearly three years, you said. Then he must have been everywhere around here.” And she got up, gazing about her, as though she would firmly fix the locality for future reminiscent dreams. Then suddenly she said:
“I should like to see his room—may I?”
“You sure can!”
She followed him into the house, and he stood in the open doorway, watching her as she went from place to place, looking at Larry’s effects.