"No," Anne said, troubled. He had told them a great deal, but not—she felt sure—not this, whatever it was.
"That's why we worried about him," said his son, his honest, distressed eyes meeting hers. "You see—you see—we're in trouble at the house—my mother—my mother left us, last night—"
"Dead?" whispered Anne.
"She's been ill a good while," said the young man, "but we thought—She's been so ill before! A day or two ago the rest of us knew it, and we wired for my married sister, but we couldn't get dad to realize it. He never left her, and he's not been eating, and he'd tell all the doctors what serious sicknesses she'd gotten over before—" And with a suddenly shaking lip and filling eyes, he turned his back on Anne, and went to the window.
"Ah!" said Anne, pitifully. And for a full moment there was silence.
Then Charles Rideout, the younger, came back to her, pushing his handkerchief into his coat pocket; and with a restored self-control.
"Too bad to bother you with our troubles," he said, with a little smile like his father's. "To us, of course, it seems like the end of the world, but I am sorry to distress YOU! Dad just doesn't seem to grasp it, he hasn't been excited, you know, but he doesn't seem to understand. I don't know that any of us do!" he finished simply.
"Here they are!" Anne said warningly, as the two other men came down the stairs.
"Hello, Dad!" said young Rideout, easily and cheerfully, "I came to bring you home!"
"This is MY boy, Mrs. Warriner," said his father; "you see he's turned the tables, and is looking after me! I'm glad you came, Charley. I've been telling your good husband, Mrs. Warriner," he said, in a lower tone, "that we—that I—"