She nodded, watching him curiously.
“I should think a man ought to be eager to return to such a home as that,” he said.
“He ran away,” she explained with some embarrassment at expressing the more intimate details. “He is somewhere in Alaska.”
Barnes acknowledged her confidence with a sympathetic nod of his head.
“If he is in Alaska,” he suggested, “it will be only a matter of time.”
“That is just the trouble,” she exclaimed impulsively. “That is the pity of it. It will be too late!”
He saw that the boy himself was a mere episode in some more poignant grief. He waited for her to proceed. She said,
“I don’t know why I should tell you this—except that it’s a relief to tell anyone. Father is up there waiting for him—with not long to live. If he hears this—his heart—”
Her fingers closed convulsively over the letter.
“That is tough,” he murmured. “Your father expected to see the boy himself to-day?”