She smiled broadly. "Through the lawyers I have already a binding option on it. The final papers will be signed to-day."
"But how can I help you?" Joel asked, still shrinkingly.
Mrs. Trott hesitated, as if to decide exactly how she should make her next move. Then, with a half-fearful smile, she said: "You remember, Joel, how you pleaded with me, just after you and Tilly were married, to come live with you and her?"
"Yes, for we wanted you—we've always wanted you to be closer to us."
"Well, I want to go to you now, Joel," was the slow reply. "I'm lonely. Another change seems to have come over me. I have learned to love the children so much that I am restless without them. Their little visits seem too short, and on rainy days and in the winter they can't come. Yes, I want to be with you all, and I am asking you to take me at last, Joel."
"Asking me—asking me?" he stammered, comprehending her trend in part. "Why, you know—you ought to know that I—that we—"
"Well, it is for you to take me or refuse me," Mrs. Trott put in, with a wistful smile. "I want to live on the farm. I can't manage it by myself and I want you to take charge of it for me—and let us all live in that big, fine house together."
"But I— Why, I—" Joel broke down again, his patrician face awry from sheer torture, and then sat twisting his gaunt hands over his ragged, quivering knee. "I see, it is good and kind of you, but—but— I don't see how I, myself, could possibly accept your offer."
"You have to, Joel," she retorted, still with her motherly smile. "You can't refuse a thing that will give me and your wife and children so much happiness."
"But I'd be on—on your son's bounty," Joel flashed from the very embers of his humiliation.