She let him go without further questioning; she had learned almost all that she needed to know.
All of which will explain why, on the third evening after this talk, Aunt Elsie, instead of following Mrs. Forman and the girls to the family sitting-room after dinner, boldly halted in front of the little room at the end of the hall which, by courtesy, was called the library, but was in reality the place where the head of the house hid himself when he was too busy or too sad to join the family circle. Mrs. Forman noted with dismay the stopping of the crutch before that already closed door—Mr. Forman had excused himself before dinner was quite over.
“I’m sorry your aunt stopped there,” she said, “your father will not feel equal to sitting with her to-night.”
“Perhaps she will cheer him up,” was Jean’s hopeful reply. “I’m sure she can, if any one can.”
Mrs. Forman’s only reply was a sigh; she understood so much better than Jean how hard a thing that would be to do on this night of all others. It had been her plan to slip away from the family as soon as she could do so unnoticed, to sit beside the stricken man for a while, in silence, just to let him feel her sympathy. There were no words that she could speak until he had time to adjust himself to his burden. She was as yet the only one in the family who knew that Mr. Forman’s last effort to raise money had failed, and that in a very few days they would be homeless. What words were there to speak to a man so stricken? His wife knew what a brave struggle he had made, even to appealing once more, because of her urging, to his brother Evarts, a thing that he had said he would not do; and the result had been that as he read the reply with set lips and a face so white it frightened her, he looked up to say: “Louise, remember, if the alternative is the poorhouse for us both, we will take that; we must never appeal to him again.”
Mrs. Forman, as she sat waiting, wished that she had explained the present situation to Aunt Elsie, who must know very soon now, and she would have left the poor man to this one hour of needed solitude, if she had understood.
The caller did not wait to knock but opened the door and advanced quickly, not apparently noticing the haggard face turned to see who the intruder was; he arose at once with the instincts of a gentleman pushed forward an easy chair for her use.
“I thought it was Louise,” he said, because it seemed necessary to say something.
“No, Louise and the others went to the living-room and I thumped on down here because I wanted to talk to you a minute. I won’t hinder you long, but I can’t help seeing that something is troubling you, and I wondered if I couldn’t be of some help.”
He smiled faintly. “Yes,” he said, “I am troubled, there is no use in denying it; I am in great trouble, but there is nothing you can do to help; yet it is a comfort to realize how quickly you would help, if you could.”