The sweet old face grew solemn. “The greatest man has his cares and doubts and divisions. That's only natural—out in the open field of life. But don't be ashamed to come here whenever you are in trouble. It's what home is for, Philip. Just a place of peace and shelter from the rough world, when it wounds and hurts you. A quiet spot, dear, with memories of father and mother and innocent childhood—and with an old goose of an auntie, maybe, who thinks of you all day and every day, and is so vain and foolish—and—and who loves you. Philip, better than anybody in the World.”
Philip's arms were about the old soul, but he had not heard her. With a terrified glance towards the window, he was saying in a low quick voice, “Isn't that a footstep on the gravel?”
“N—o, no! You're nervous to-night, Philip. Lie and rest. When you're asleep, I'll creep back and look at you.”
She left him, and he looked around. Not in all the world could Philip have found a spot so full of terrors. It was like a sepulchre of dead things—his dead father, his dead mother, his dead youth, his dead innocence, his slaughtered friendship, and his outraged conscience.
Over the fireplace hung a portrait of his mother. It was the picture of a comely girl, young and soft, with full ripe lips and bright brown eyes. Philip shuddered as he looked at it. The portrait was like the ghost of himself looking through the veil of a woman's face.
Facing this, and hanging over the side of the bed, was a portrait of his father. The eyes were full of light, the lines of the cheek were round; the mouth seemed to quiver with a tender smile. But Philip could not see it as it was. He saw it with straggling hair, damp and long as reeds, the cheeks pallid and drawn, the eyes like lamps in a mist, the throat bare of the shirt, and the lips kept apart by laboured breathing.
Near the window stood the cot where he had once slept with Pete, and leaped up in the morning and laughed. On every hand, wherever his eye could rest, there rose a phantom of his lost and buried life. And Auntie Nannie's love and pride had brought him to this chamber of torture!
The night was calm enough outside; but it seemed to lie dead within that room, so quiet was it and so still. There was a clock, but it did not go; and there was a cage for a bird, but no bird pecked in it, Philip thought he heard a knocking at the door of the house. Nobody answered it, so he rang for the maid. She came upstairs with a smile.
“Didn't you hear a knock at the front door, Martha?”
“No, sir,” said the girl.