“Yes, I knew your mother,” he said, hearing his voice sound husky. “But, as you say, it was a long time ago.”
“Mother got quite excited when she heard it was you. You know she’s not well and the least thing upsets her. She couldn’t believe it at first. Then she wondered if you wouldn’t come up and see her and sent me down to ask you.”
Alice had sent her. After twenty-one years Alice had sent this message for him! And it was all so natural and simple—a moment that sometimes, in hours of melancholy brooding, he had thought of, and always seen fraught with tragic passion. He bent to pick up a locust blossom that a wandering zephyr had wafted along the balcony floor. For a moment he made no answer. He could not trust his voice. The girl continued, not noticing his silence.
“She doesn’t see many people. She’s sick, you know; June said she told you. And then there’s not many people round here for her to see. I suppose you’ll find her changed if you haven’t seen her since she was married. She’s changed a good deal lately, poor mother!”
She gave a sigh and looked away from him. The Colonel answered quickly:
“Oh, yes, I’ll come, I’ll come.”
His visitor did not seem to notice anything unusual in his manner of accepting the invitation of an old friend. The trouble of her mother’s changed condition was uppermost in her mind.
“I dare say you won’t know it’s the same person. But don’t let her see that. We want her to be bright and cheerful, and if people look surprised when they see her it makes her think she’s worse—” She looked anxiously at him, but his face was averted. There was a slight pause and then she said in a low voice:
“Mother has consumption, Colonel Parrish.”
This time he turned and stared straight at her. Her eyes, full of sad meaning, were fixed on him. The other daughter’s remarks had led him to suppose that Alice was suffering from some temporary illness. Now he knew that she was dying.