Mary went back to Boston the next day. She said it was fortunate, indeed, that Jane’s nerves were so strong. For her part, she could not have stood it another day.
The days slipped into weeks, and the weeks into months. Jane took the entire care of her father, except that she hired a woman to come in for an hour or two once or twice a week, when she herself was obliged to leave the house.
The owner of the blue-gray eyes did not belie the determination of his chin, but made a valiant effort to establish himself on the basis of the old intimacy; but Miss Pendergast held herself sternly aloof, and refused to listen to him. In a year he had left town--but it was not his fault that he was obliged to go away alone, as Jane Pendergast well knew.
One by one the years passed. Twenty had gone by now since the small boy came with his fateful summons that June day. Jane was fifty-five now, a thin-faced, stoop-shouldered, tired woman--but a woman to whom release from this constant care was soon to come, for she was not yet fifty-six when her father died.
All the children and some of the grandchildren came to the funeral. In the evening the family, with the exception of Jane, gathered in the sitting-room and discussed the future, while upstairs the woman whose fate was most concerned laid herself wearily in bed with almost a pang that she need not now first be doubly sure that doors were locked and spoons were counted.
In the sitting-room below, discussion waxed warm.
“But what shall we do with her?” demanded Mary. “I had meant to give her my share of the property,” she added with an air of great generosity, “but it seems there’s nothing to give.”
“No, there’s nothing to give,” returned Edgar. “The house had to be mortgaged long ago to pay their living expenses, and it will have to be sold.”
“But she’s got to live somewhere!” Mary’s voice was fretful, questioning.
For a moment there was silence; then Edgar stirrad in his chair.