“Yes.”
But this was another of the puzzling things he found at Peace Island. In its very loveliest nook was the last resting-place of Cecily Romeyn, and the sacred spot was always beautiful with flowers, or, in the winter, with brilliant berries. Both the master and the girl spoke of their dead as if she were still present with them; or, at least, lived as if she were only removed from sight but not from their lives.
When Margot had laid the fresh wreath upon the mound, she carefully removed the faded flowers of the day before, and a thought of his own mother stirred Adrian’s heart.
“I wish I could send a bunch of such blossoms to the mater!”
“How can you live without her, since she is still alive?”
His face hardened again.
“You forget. I told you that she, too, turned against me at the last. It was a case of husband or son, and she made her choice.”
“Oh! no. She was unhappy. One may do strange things then, I suppose. But I tell you one thing: if I had either father or mother, anywhere in this world; no matter if either was bad—had done everything that is sinful!—nothing should ever, ever make me leave them. Nothing. I would bear anything, do anything, suffer anything—but I would be true to them. I could not forget that I was their child, and if I had done wrong to them my whole life would be too short to make atonement.”
She spoke strongly, as she felt. So early orphaned, she had come to think of her parents as the most wonderful blessing in the power of God to leave one. She loved her Uncle Hugh like a second father, but her tenderest dreams were over the pictured faces of her dead.
“Where is your father buried?”