d father and her lover, what? It was to be days before I
knew and in all that time, I, who would have died, not cheerfully but at
least stoically, for her, had to stand back and watch the struggle, not
daring to hold out my hand to help, lest by the very gesture she divine
my wild longing to hold her for myself.

She recovered bravely that morning from the shock, and refusing to go to
her room and lie down--a suggestion, like the coffee, culled from my
vicarious domestic life--she went out to the veranda and sat there in
the morning sun, gazing across the lawn. I left her there finally, and
broke the news of her brother-in-law's death to Miss Letitia. After the
first surprise, the old lady took the news with what was nearer
complacency than resignation.

"Shot!" she said, sitting up in bed, while Heppie shook her pillows.
"It's a queer death for Allan Fleming; I always said he would be
hanged."

After that, she apparently dismissed him from her mind, and we talked of
her sister. Her mood had changed and it was depressing to find that she
spoke of Jane always in the past tense. She could speak of her quite
calmly--I suppose the sharpness of our emotions is in inverse ratio to
our length of years, and she regretted that, under the circumstances,
Jane would not rest in the family lot.

"We are all there," she said, "eleven of us, counting my sister Mary's
husband, although he don't properly belong, and I always said we would
take him out if we were crowded. It is the best lot in the Hopedale
Cemetery; you can see the shaft for two miles in any direction."

We held a family council that morning around Miss Letitia's bed:
Wardrop, who took little part in the proceedings, and who stood at a
window looking out most of the time, Margery on the bed, her arm around
Miss Letitia's shriveled neck, and Heppie, who acted as interpreter and
shouted into the old lady's ear such parts of the conversation as she
considered essential.

"I have talked with Miss Fleming," I said, as clearly as I could, "and
she seems to shrink from seeing people. The only friends she cares about
are in Europe, and she tells me there are no other relatives."

Heppie condensed this into a vocal capsule, and thrust it into Miss
Letitia's ear. The old lady nodded.

"No other relatives," she corroborated. "God be praised for that,
anyhow."

"And yet," I went on, "there are things to look after, certain necessary
duties that no one else can attend to.