“You can say it whenever you wish, Carson,” she said. “As if I could get angry at you after—after—” But she did not finish, for with her hand still warmly clasping his fingers, she was listening to a distant sound. It was a restless human tread on a resounding floor.
“It's Mam' Linda,” Helen said. “She walks like that night and day. I must go to her and—tell her you are back, but oh, how can I? Good-night, Carson. Ill never forget what you have done—never!”
CHAPTER XV.
FTER an almost sleepless night, spent for the greater part in despondent reflections over his failure in the things to which he had directed his hopes and energies, Carson rose about seven o'clock, went into his mother's room to ask how she had rested through the night, and then descended, to breakfast. It was eight o'clock when he arrived at the office. Garner was there in a cloud of dust, sweeping a pile of torn papers into the already filled fireplace.
“I'm going to touch a match to this the first rainy day—if I think of it,” he said. “It's liable to set the roof on fire when it's dry as it is now.”