ce nor offend her. Mr. Cobb, who had just
returned from his office, suddenly entered the room. His face assumed an
ashen pallor, and he stared at me quite dumfounded for a moment, when I
arose and stood before him.

"It is Kendric. Don't you recognize him?" said my stepmother.

"So it is!" he exclaimed. "But he's grown quite out of my recollection."
The man had recovered his self-possession in a moment, and treated me,
it must be said to his credit, with marked coolness. I was likely to get
on with him very well, I thought, but the fawning attitude of his wife
quite unhorsed me. If I am to see the devil I'd rather he'd frown than
smile. Cobb had very little to say to us, and left the room at the first
opportunity. In doing so he had shown scant consideration for his wife,
however, as it left a burden upon her shoulders that must have taxed her
strength. But she was not unequal to it. Her smile broadened after he
had gone, and there was a tone of deeper sincerity in her expressions
of regard. We had been to dinner, and if she would kindly send a little
cold lunch to our room at bedtime that would be quite sufficient. During
her absence for dinner the reaction came. When my stepmother returned
she seemed to have suddenly grown older, and she looked at us through
haggard and sunken eyes. Surely this was a terrible punishment she was
undergoing, and I pitied her. Mr. Cobb had an important engagement to
keep, she said, and hoped we would excuse him. Slowly the evening wore
away and at ten o'clock we were shown to our room, greatly fatigued by
this trying experience. It was a room fronting the street on the third
floor, which I had occupied before I left home. The walls had been
painted white since then, with a frieze of gold along the ceiling.
My father used to sleep in the room directly under it. Rayel had been
silent and absent-minded all the evening, rarely speaking except in
reply to some question.

"I feel sad for some cause I do not understand," said he, preparing to
retire. "I shall be glad when to-morrow comes."

"We will go back in the morning," I said. "You don't feel at home here,
do you?"

He did not seem to hear me, but tried the door, which I had already
bolted, and then got into bed, yawning and shivering, for the room was
cold. I turned down the light, and, opening the shutters, looked out
upon the street, now deserted save by a solitary man who had just passed
the house and whose slow footsteps were gra