"I'm here, mother," he said cheerfully.
"Are you quite comfortable, Horace? Is there nothing that you want?"
He hesitated a moment, and then said frankly, "Yes and no, mother."
"Is it anything that I can do for you?" she asked, coming into the room and smoothing his hair as she spoke.
"Ah, that is the no of it, and the hard part," he answered, capturing the hand and holding it tight between his own.
"And the hard part for your old mother too, when the one thing comes that she cannot give or do. Whatever it is, don't shut me out from it, Horace,—that is, unless you must," and tucking the light summer quilt in Under the pillow by one of his hands, she kissed his forehead and went away.
Horace Bradford must have slept, for his next consciousness was of the fresh wind and light of morning, and as he drew his cramped hand from under his pillow, something soft and filmy came with it,—a woman's handkerchief edged with lace.
For a minute he held it in surprise, and then began to search the corners for the marking. There it was, two embroidered initials, S.L. Where had it dropped from? Who had put it there? Was it a message or an accident? Yet it was both and neither. His mother had found the dainty thing in the package from New York that held the gown and ornaments, where it had dropped from Sylvia's waist that night, four months before, when she stood leaning on Miss Lavinia Dorman's table, as the parcel was being tied.
Mrs. Bradford had pondered over it silently until, the day when I went to see her and chanced to mention Sylvia Latham's name, its identity flashed upon her; and when gropingly she came to associate this name with something that troubled Horace, obliterating self and mother jealousy, she tucked the bit of linen underneath his pillow, with an undefined idea, knowing nothing, in the hope that it might comfort him. And so it did; for even when he learned the manner of its coming, he put it in his letter case as a reminder not to despair but wait.
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