"
"I think of it all--often," she answered in a hushed voice, "and every
time I seem to see things differently. My poor mother!"
"You never knew her?" he asked.
"No, I was too young--scarcely more than a year old. Yet her loss
seems to have overshadowed my whole life."
"Was she like you?"
"Yes, I believe so. She was dark--not so dark as I am--but she was
stately and beautiful. So she has always been described to me, and so
I always seem to see her."
Stafford turned and looked about him.
"It must be almost as it was then," he said wonderingly, pointing to
the rusty truckle-bed in the corner. "And there is the broken
over-turned chair! It might have been yesterday."
She nodded.
"So my guardian found it," she said. "It had been my father's bungalow
and he never allowed it to be touched. When I came of age I gave it to
him. It seemed to belong to him, somehow. They say that it nearly
broke his heart when he found that he had come too late to save my
father. My father was his dearest, almost his only friend."
"Were they killed at once?" Stafford asked with hesitating curiosity.
"I have never known the rights of the case. It has always been a
painful subject for me--with you I don't mind."
It was the faintest allusion to a bond between them which both
silently recognized, and Lois turned away to hide the signal of
happiness which had risen to her cheeks.
"No one knows," she answered.
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