“I am thinking about my mother,” she replied in a low, distressed voice. “Is it not strange, Brian, that I hear nothing of her? From the day that I heard I had a mother till now, I have searched for her. Yet I can hear nothing from her; neither can any one that I employ.”
Her voice failed, and with a heavy sob she dropped her head on her breast.
Camperdown looked at her in obvious distress. She so seldom gave way; he could see that she was suffering extremely. “Don’t cry, Stargarde; don’t cry,” he said uneasily. “It will all come out right. We may find her yet.”
“I am a coward,” said the woman, suddenly lifting her moist, beautiful eyes to his face; “but sometimes I can’t help it, Brian; it overcomes me. I never sit by a sick-bed, I never kneel by a dying person without thinking of her. Where is she? Is there some one to care for her? Perhaps she is cold and hungry and ill. Her body may be suffering, and her soul too, her immortal soul. Oh, that is what distresses me. She was not doing right—we know that.”
“There is one thing I know,” he said decidedly, “and that is that you’ll do no work to-morrow if you spend the night in fretting over what can’t be helped. Come, take some of your own medicine. The Lord knows what is best for you; go on with what you have to do and wait his time.”
She brightened perceptibly. “Thank you, Brian, for reminding me. Good-night, my dear brother, always kind and good to me,” and pressing gently the hand that still held her own, she gave him a farewell smile and went slowly into her rooms.
CHAPTER XVI
THE COLONIAL COTTAGE
Stanton Armour was a man who dwelt apart from other men as far as his inner life was concerned. A large number of people saw him going daily to his office; a smaller number had business dealings with him; a select few had an occasional conversation with him in the privacy of his own house; and of the outer man those people could give a very good description.
Of the inner man they knew but little. Wrapped in an impenetrable, frozen reserve, it was impossible to tell what was going on in the hidden recesses of his mind, except at some occasional times when he exhibited a flicker of interest or annoyance at something that was transpiring about him.
His reputation was that of an honorable, upright man, yet he was a person to be respected and avoided rather than cultivated and admired.