There was no one to come home for, no one to want to look nice for, no one to watch for at the window, no one to work hard at lessons for, no one, in fact, to do anything for.
They called it “home.” Perhaps in some ways it still was home, but where is the real spirit of home when father and mother have both gone?
There was little of light or warmth in this home now. It had dwindled down to four, two being children and two grown up.
And so things went on, without much love anywhere, chill and comfortless.
Besides the desolation caused by the sudden cutting of loved companionship there hung round the house the feeling which always follows on a tragedy.
It appeared as if in every room there hovered a silent, fleeting cloud of pain—none the less felt because it was not seen.
On the stairs, in the hall, in the sitting-rooms, in the shabby little bedroom, and in the kitchen one felt as if the dead face were still looking out, hopelessly, miserably, silently, and many a time, when Deborah passed through, the sharp aching pain she was getting to understand so well would rise full in her heart to think of him.
Her mind constantly dwelt on him; it was impossible to forget.
Nightly she dreamt about him, and it was always that he had come back again.
Each night for months the same dream would come, each time with some little change to give it more reality, and each morning she awoke to find it but a dream.