"What are they doing? It can't be they're at work such a day as this," Howard said, standing at the window.
"They find plenty to do, even on rainy days," answered his mother. "Grant always has some job to set the men at. It's the only way to live."
"I'll go out and see them." He turned suddenly. "Mother, why should Grant treat me so? Have I deserved it?"
Mrs. McLane sighed in pathetic hopelessness. "I don't know, Howard. I'm worried about Grant. He gets more an' more down-hearted an' gloomy every day. Seems if he'd go crazy. He don't care how he looks any more, won't dress up on Sunday. Days an' days he'll go aroun' not sayin' a word. I was in hopes you could help him, Howard."
"My coming seems to have had an opposite effect. He hasn't spoken a word to me, except when he had to, since I came. Mother, what do you say to going home with me to New York?"
"Oh, I couldn't do that!" she cried in terror. "I couldn't live in a big city—never!"
"There speaks the truly rural mind," smiled Howard at his mother, who was looking up at him through her glasses with a pathetic forlornness which sobered him again. "Why, mother, you could live in Orange, New Jersey, or out in Connecticut, and be just as lonesome as you are here. You wouldn't need to live in the city. I could see you then every day or two."
"Well, I couldn't leave Grant an' the baby, anyway," she replied, not realizing how one could live in New Jersey and do business daily in New York.
"Well, then, how would you like to go back into the old house?"
The patient hands fell to the lap, the dim eyes fixed in searching glance on his face. There was a wistful cry in the voice.