It was late the next morning that the man-servant, unable to open the door, climbed in the open window and found his master fallen back in the arm-chair, his bed untouched. When, panic-stricken, he opened the door, calling loudly for help, Philip came quickly in, and saw his father, the open safe, and the fragments of burnt legal papers on the hearthstone, and reading the few words that remained, he understood. Putting his arms about the lifeless form as he never before had dared, he thanked God in his heart for the single tender memory.
Though due show of public respect was paid in the last rites, as due to a leading citizen whose name, known to them rather than his person, was always first on the subscription papers alike for foreign missions and civic improvements, John Angus's death did not affect any one. The only person who really took it to heart was Oliver Gilbert. To him the one idea was paramount, the death of his neighbor before the possibility of mutual understanding had come, and with the Puritan strain of self-reproach strong in him, Gilbert, sitting in his little shop, mentally scourged himself and followed painfully on foot in company with the humbler members of the town as though the fault lay on his side.
"What shall you do?" Jeanne Latimer had asked Poppea during the next day when Philip was closeted with her husband in whose hands he had placed all arrangements.
"Whatever Philip wishes," Poppea answered. "You know he is the family now, and he will never broach the one point I cannot yield."
"Shall you wear black?" Jeanne continued with some hesitation.
"I think so, for a time," Poppea said with brows knitted, "or else Philip will feel so entirely alone, so isolated."
In a week's time the lawyer, whom Poppea had met before, came to the Rectory, where Philip had been staying since the funeral, for the boy had told Stephen Latimer frankly that he should never again sleep in the house on Windy Hill, where the servants now remained alone, awaiting events and orders, or again go to the sombre city house that looked across Washington Square.
The lawyer met Philip and Mr. Latimer alone, as Poppea had asked to be released from any part in this interview, and spoke of the will that he had drawn up within the month and produced the draft of it.
Philip laid on the table the scorched fragments found upon the hearth on which a visible word here and there was enough to prove identity.