As Trenholme was surveying the place dreamily in the wonderful light, that light fell also, upon him and his habitation. He was apparently intellectual, and had in him something of the idealist. For the rest, he was a good-sized, good-looking man, between thirty and forty years of age, and even by the moonlight one might see, from the form of his clothes, that he was dressed with fastidious care. The walls and verandah, of his house, which were of wood, glistened almost as brightly with white paint as the knocker and doorplate did with brass lacquer.
After a few minutes Trenholme's housekeeper, a wiry, sad-eyed woman, came to see why the door was left open. When she saw the master of the house she retired in abrupt, angular fashion, but the suggestion of her errand recalled him from his brief relaxation.
In his study he again sat down before the table where he had been talking to his visitors. From the leaves of his blotting-paper he took a letter which he had apparently been interrupted in writing. He took it out in a quick, business-like way, and dipped his pen in the ink as though, to finish rapidly; but then he sat still until the pen dried, and no further word had been added. Again he dipped his pen, and again let it dry. If the first sentence of the letter had taken as long to compose as the second, it was no wonder that a caller had caused an interruption.
The letter, as it lay before him, had about a third of its page written in a neat, forcible hand. The arms of his young college were printed at the top. He had written:—
My dear brother,—I am very much concerned not to have heard from you for so long. I have written to your old address in Montreal, but received no answer.
Here came the stop. At last he put pen to paper and went on:—
Even though we have disagreed as to what occupation is best for you to follow, and also as to the degree of reserve that is desirable as to what our father did, you must surely know that there is nothing I desire more than your highest welfare.
After looking at this sentence for a little while he struck his pen through the word "highest," and then, offended with the appearance of the obliteration, he copied this much of the letter on a fresh sheet and again stopped.
When he continued, it was on the old sheet. He made a rough copy of the letter—writing, crossing out, and rewriting. It seemed that the task to which he had set himself was almost harder than could appear possible, for, as he became more absorbed in it, there was evidence of discomfort in his attitude, and although the room was not warm, the moisture on his forehead became visible in the strong light of the lamp above him. At length, after preliminary pauses had been followed by a lengthened period of vigorous writing, the letter was copied, and the writer sealed it with an air of obvious relief.
That done, he wrote another letter, the composition of which, although it engaged his care, was apparently so much pleasanter, that perhaps the doing of it was chosen on the same principle as one hears a farce after a tragedy, in order to sleep the more easily.