"Oh!" The exclamation was sharp with pain.
"I think she fretted for you, John. She just seemed to pine away. Every day we missed her about the same time, and they always found her in the same place, down by the green road. Then scarlet fever came. She never spoke of getting well—didn't seem to want to. The night she died she put her arms around mother's neck and whispered. 'Tell Don me'll be waitin' at the gate.' That was all."
John wrung Reginald's hand and turned away. Reginald looked after him with misty eyes. "I used to tell mother it would break his heart. I never saw any one so wrapped up in a child!"
"And your father, Rege?" John was calm again.
"Had a fit of apoplexy soon after. I think Nan was the only thing in the world he cared for. It had never struck him that she could die. We sold Hollywood and went abroad. Mother's health broke down—she was never very strong, you know. We spent one year in Italy and one in France, but the shock had been too great. She lies in a lovely spot beside the sea."
"Not your mother too, Rege!"
Reginald's voice broke. "Yes, they are all gone. It was a great deal to happen in a few years. I am a wealthy man, John, but I am all alone in the world, except for Elise. Well," he added more lightly, "I have learned not to rebel at the inevitable. It is only what we have to expect."
"Elise!" echoed John wonderingly, after the first shock of grief was over.
"My wife," said Reginald proudly. "You must come home at once and let me show you the sweetest woman in the world."
"Not just yet, Rege I must pay a visit to Mrs. O'Flannigan, then there is the hospital, and the dispensary, and I promised to concoct a bed for a poor fellow in the last stages of heart trouble. But I will come to-night."