"Yes."

"I had a note from him this afternoon at the office, asking me to hold in abeyance for the time being the trust that Ben had left me and returning the key of the house to me for safekeeping."

"Has he already gone?"

"I suppose so; I don't know."

"We must find out." She caught up her wraps and began to put them on. Sherrill hesitated, then assented; and they went round the block together to the Corvet house. The shades, Constance saw as they approached, were drawn; their rings at the doorbell brought no response. Sherrill, after a few instants' hesitation, took the key from his pocket and unlocked the door and they went in. The rooms, she saw, were all in perfect order; summer covers had been put upon the furniture; protecting cloths had been spread over the beds up-stairs. Her father tried the water and the gas, and found they had been turned off. After their inspection, they came out again at the front door, and her father closed it with a snapping of the spring lock.

Constance, as they walked away, turned and looked back at the old house, gloomy and dark among its newer, fresher-looking neighbors; and suddenly she choked, and her eyes grew wet. That feeling was not for Uncle Benny; the drain of days past had exhausted such a surge of feeling for him. That which she could not wink away was for the boy who had come to that house a few weeks ago and for the man who just now had gone.

CHAPTER XIII

THE THINGS FROM CORVET'S POCKETS

"Miss Constance Sherrill,
Harbor Springs, Michigan."