he was never one to talk, Mrs. Leeth. She talks less than ever,
now. I don't know as I put it very clear to you: it's a pretty hard
thing _to_ put clear."

He looked appealingly at me.

"Of course, of course," I said soothingly. "Those things are not to be
set down in black and white."

"That's just it. When I say that mother looks out at me from her eyes,
it seems to be more what I mean. I seem to have 'em both by me, if you
can see.... And when I look in her eyes, I understand it all--and I
can wait," he added simply. "You've noticed her eyes?"

I nodded.

"Does she ever speak...?"

"I couldn't make you see what I mean very well, about that," he said
contentedly. "She just looks at me. It's all plain, then. Maybe
that's how we'll all do, in the next life. Don't you think so?"

I found my way to Will's office through a mist of tears.

"Well, what about it?" he asked abruptly.

"I think it's one of the most touching things I ever heard."

"Believe it?"

"Why, Will!"

"Oh! Then you don't blame me any more for committing him?"

"Certainly not. What else could you do?"

"Um-m-m. That's what Minnie, Countess of Barkington, said. She put it
stronger than that. When a man of that age spends half of his time in
the housekeeper's room, sorting linen, she suggested, there's something
wrong. We shall certainly question the will--if he alters it."

"Alters it?"

"In favor of Mrs. Leeth, of course. The fair Minnie hasn't lived among
the English aristocracy for nothing."

"Why, Will, how ludicrous--you mean that she suspects----"

"Certainly she does. And very hard-headed of her, too. Stranger
things have been."

"But one has only to look at them!"

"That's what Irene thought. But not Barkington. He suggested an
asylum. The doctor called me in. (The doctor, by the way, swears the
woman died, aunty. 'Only, of course, she couldn't have,' he always
adds.) To everybody's surprise Absolom agrees quietly, immediately.

"'I wouldn't have Irene worried, as she is now, for anything,' he said.
'I never meant to leave Mrs. Leeth a penny more than the thousand a
year mother and I always planned, but if Minnie can't believe me, all
right.'

"Now, here's an odd thing, aunty. No one of that family ever heard of
this place, including Absolom himself. Precious few people know about
it, anyhow, you see. It pays every one not to. Well. Mrs. Leeth is
dismissed, arrangements made, I take him in