"It was a farmhouse where we were living--and it took fire. Mother and sisters had no time to escape. It was early morning. I was a boy of eighteen, and was out on the farm doing my chores. When I saw smoke and came back, the house was a burning mass, and--it was all over."
"Where was your father?"
"My father is dead."
"But he was there--at the time of the fire?"
"Yes. He was there."
He had suddenly ceased to be communicative, and she instinctively asked no more questions, except as to the cause of the conflagration.
"Probably an explosion of coal-oil. It was sometimes used to light the fire with in the morning."
"How very, very terrible!" she said gently, after a moment, as though she felt it. "Did you stay on at the farm?"
"I brought up my two brothers. They were on a visit to some neighbours at the time of the fire. We stayed on three years."
"With your father?"