e has departed?"

"You are morbid, dear. Bring your maid and come to my mother's house
for a little, as she has repeatedly asked you to do. It will make it
so much easier for you."

"Perhaps it would. Your mother has been so very kind, and yet I feel
that I must remain here, that there is something for me to do."

"I don't understand. What do you mean, dearest?"

She turned swiftly and placed her hands upon his broad shoulders. Her
childish eyes were steely with an intensity of purpose hitherto
foreign to them.

"Ramon, there is something I have not told you or any one; but I feel
that the time has come for me to speak. It is not nervousness, or
imagination; it is a fact which occurred on the night of my father's
death."

"Why speak of it, Anita?" He took her hands from his shoulders, and
pressed them gently, but with quiet strength. "It is all over now, you
know. We must not dwell too much upon what is past; I shall have to
help you to put it all from your mind--not to forget, but to make your
memories tender and beautiful."

"But I must speak of it. It will be on my mind day and night until I
have told you. Ramon, you dined with us that night--the night before.
Did my father seem ill to you?"

"Of course not. I had never known him to be in better health and
spirits." Ramon glanced at her in involuntary surprise.

"Are you sure?"

"Why do you ask me that? You know that heart-disease may attack one at
any time without warning."

Anita sank upon the window-seat again, and leaned forward pensively,
her hands clasped over her knees.

"You will remember that after you and father had your coffee and
cigars together in the dining-room, you both joined me?"

"Of course. You were playing the piano, ramblingly, as if your
thoughts were far away, and you seemed nervous, ill at ease. I
wondered about it at the time."

"It was because of father. To you he appeared in the best of spirits,
as you say, but I, who knew him better than any one else on earth,
realized that he was forcing himself to be genial, to take an interest
in what we were saying. For days he had been overwrought and
depressed. As you know, he has confided in me, absolutely, since I
have been old enough to be a real companion to him. I thought that I
knew all his business affairs--those of the last two or three years at
least--but latterly his manner has puzzled and distressed me. Then,
while you were in the dining-room, the telephone rang twice."