"I don't see it, sir."
The father, watching him with feverish eyes, started at his voice, raised his hand to his forehead and walked quickly to his side:
"Yes, I—I—forgot—I put it away!"
He dropped limply into the chair before the desk, fumbled among the papers and drew the letter from the pigeon-hole in which he had placed it.
He held it in his hand, shaking now like a leaf, and read again the scrawl that he had blurred with tears and kisses. He placed his hand on the top of the desk, rose with difficulty and looked for Tom. The boy had moved quietly toward the table. The act was painfully significant of their new relations. The sense of alienation cut the broken man to the quick. He could scarcely see as he felt his way to the boy's side and extended the open sheet of paper without a word.
Tom took the letter, turned his back on his father and read it in silence.
"How queer her handwriting!" he said at length.
Norton spoke in strained muffled tones:
"Yes—she—she was dying when she scrawled that. The mists of the other world were gathering about her. I don't think she could see the paper"—the voice broke, he fought for self-control and then went on—"but every tiny slip of her pencil, each little weak hesitating mark etched itself in fire on my heart"—the voice stopped and then went on—"you can read them?"
"Yes."