"I read it in your letters."
"What letters?" he asked, stupefied.
"The ones to Mother. Oh, Bobs, I think they were too flawless. No one but a darling like you could have written them."
"Wait a moment." He put his hand to his head. His science-circumscribed world of materialism was toppling about him. "How did you know about them? That I was writing them? Where to find them?"
"Mother told me."
"Mona? Pat, I want the truth."
"I'm giving it to you. Before she died, when I saw her there in New York, she told me how she had made you promise to write and put the letters in the safe; and the real reason was, not that she thought she would ever come back to read them, but she thought you were the wisest and best man in the world, and she knew how fond you were of all of us, and she wanted me to know what you thought and be guided by what you said. I suppose she figured that you'd say more about me that way than you ever would to me. So you did."
Osterhout gave a great laugh, partly of relief, partly of tenderness. "That's so like Mona! Her passion for intrigue, just for the sake of the game itself; her eternal loving cleverness. There are mighty few people, Pat, in whom affection is a thing of the mind as well as the heart. Your mother was one of them."
"So'm I," asserted Pat promptly. "What's the matter now, Bobs?" For his face had altered again, his brow drawing heavily down, his eyes become still and brooding.