"To whom, father?"
"Perhaps you've seen him, Anna. I hear that he is come home. His name is
Axtell,—Abraham Axtell."
I told my father of the first words,—where we had found him, tolling the bell,—and of his mother's death, and his sister's illness.
"Incomprehensible people!" was my father's sole ejaculation, as he went to look after the deranged patient.
I occupied myself for an hour in picking up the reins of government that I had thrown down when I went to Redleaf. Looking into "our room," and not finding father there, I went on, up to my own room. A warm, welcoming fire burned within the grate. I thought, "How good father is to think for me!" and with the thought there entered in another. It came in the sudden consciousness that the room was prepared for some one else than me. I glanced about it, and saw the strange, wild man, with eyes all aglow, looking at me from out the depths of my wonted place of rest. No one else was in the room. I turned around to leave, but, dropping my precious box of margarite, I stooped to pick it up.
"It is a good harbor to sail into. I'm content," said the voice from the corner, before I could escape.
I met father coming in.
"Why, how is this?" he said to me.
"You didn't tell me you had given up my room," I said.
"Didn't I? Well, I forgot. We couldn't take him higher."