Surely, Miss Winchester would never have made him promise so sacredly never to part with her cricket if she had not known that it contained something which might some day become of importance to him.
The partial cutting away of the various coverings also betrayed that, at least, some individual, for four generations back, had been cognizant of an important secret connected with the quaint heirloom, and had probably added something to it. He recalled how very vague his Aunt Honor had always been to him in reference to his parents—particularly so regarding his father, who “went to sea before he was born and never came back”—that was her invariable reply to all questions which he asked, and he was usually switched off upon some other subject when he became too persistent.
He had a picture of his mother, taken when she was a fair, sweet girl of seventeen or eighteen years, and all his life he had loved to look at the lovely face, with its earnest, thoughtful expression, and he often wondered if the sound of her voice would have thrilled him as did those beautiful eyes into which he so loved to gaze.
He never remembered to have seen any relatives—he had had but few playmates. He and his aunt had lived very quietly by themselves in their country home, until they had come to New York, and become a part of its bustling, hustling life.
Miss Winchester had been kind and fond of him, in her way, and he had loved her more because he had no one else to love, than because of the bond of kinship which existed between them.
He smiled now, a trifle bitterly, as he thought of this, and remembered how few people there had ever been in the world who had felt any real interest in him.
Toward Mr. Brewster he had been strongly attracted from the first hour spent in his office, when he had gone to him as a common messenger-boy. He had been his ideal of a true and honorable gentleman, and his regard for him had continued to increase until it had grown into something that might have been called boyish worship.
Then Allison had come into his life, like a star of hope, only to fall again suddenly from his firmament, and leave him in almost rayless darkness.
And yet he knew he should not say that, for there was Mr. Lyttleton, whose kindness had been unvarying, while Lady Bromley was, next to Allison, the dearest friend he had ever known.