“Of course.” He knelt at the fireplace and set a match to the gas logs. Mrs. Leavitt drew the curtain aside and raised the blinds. The winter sunlight came streaming through the windows, a chilled unfriendly sunshine, but it flooded the room. Pryde looked about quickly, and the woman did too.
She was much affected. “Oh, Stephen, how this room does bring it all back to me! It seems as if it were only yesterday that Richard was here—poor Richard.” Then her eyes caught their old prey—dust—and dust—dust everywhere. She pulled open a drawer under the bookshelves and caught up a little feather duster that had always been kept there.
But Stephen checked her abruptly. “Don’t touch that table—don’t touch anything on any of the tables,” he said sharply.
“Well, I’m sure——”
“No—you must not. I—I promised Helen——”
“Promised Helen?”
“That no one should lay hand on even one thing, no one but myself, and that I would touch as little as possible—just to find the papers.”
“Well, I’m sure——”
His eye fell upon the bit of jade and he pointed to it, laughing nervously. “Especially, I had to promise her that I’d not lay a finger on that. You remember how Uncle Dick used absent-mindedly to play with it. And Helen declares that no one shall ever touch it again but herself, and she only to dust it.”
“Well, it needs dusting now, right enough,” Mrs. Leavitt remarked resentfully.