"I do not know,—mother, your expression is that of a concerned hen whose chicken is about to have its first run. I have been away from you before."
"Not since you have been ill so much," and she sighed, heavily. "Vesper, I wish you had a wife to go with you."
"Really,—another woman to run after me with pill-boxes and medicine-bottles. No, thank you."
Her face cleared. She did not wish him to get married, and he knew it. Slightly moving his dark head back and forth against the cushions of his chair, he averted his eyes from the widow's garments that she wore. He never looked at them without feeling a shock of sympathy for her, although her loss in parting from a kind and tender husband had not been equal to his in losing a father who had been an almost perfect being to him. His mother still had him,—the son who was the light of her frail little life,—and he had her, and he loved her with a kind, indulgent, filial affection, and with sympathy for her many frailties; but, when his heart cried out for his departed father, he quietly absented himself from her. And that father—that good, honorable, level-headed man—had ended his life by committing suicide. He had never understood it. It was a most bitter and stinging mystery to him even now, and he glanced at the box of dusty, faded letters on the floor beside him.
"Vesper," said Mrs. Nimmo, "do you find anything interesting among those letters of your father?"
"Not my father's. There is not one of his among them. Indeed, I think he never could have opened this box. Did you ever know of his doing so?"
"I cannot tell. They have been up in the attic ever since I was married. He examined some of the boxes, then he asked you to do it. He was always busy, too busy. He worked himself to death," and a tear fell on her black dress.
"I wish now that I had done as he requested," said the young man, gravely. "There are some questions that I should have asked him. Do you remember ever hearing him say anything about the death of my great-grandfather?"