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Page 15
"Of course he did not know it," said Caroline quickly. She turned
on her sister with a strange sharp look of suspicion. "How could
he have known it?" said she. Then she shrank as if from the
other's possible answer. "Of course you and I both know he could
not," said she conclusively, but her pale face was paler than it
had been before.
Rebecca gasped again. The married sister, Mrs. Emma Brigham, was
now sitting up straight in her chair; she had ceased rocking, and
was eyeing them both intently with a sudden accentuation of family
likeness in her face. Given one common intensity of emotion and
similar lines showed forth, and the three sisters of one race were
evident.
"What do you mean?" said she impartially to them both. Then she,
too, seemed to shrink before a possible answer. She even laughed
an evasive sort of laugh. "I guess you don't mean anything," said
she, but her face wore still the expression of shrinking horror.
"Nobody means anything," said Caroline firmly. She rose and
crossed the room toward the door with grim decisiveness.
"Where are you going?" asked Mrs. Brigham.
"I have something to see to," replied Caroline, and the others at
once knew by her tone that she had some solemn and sad duty to
perform in the chamber of death.
"Oh," said Mrs. Brigham.
After the door had closed behind Caroline, she turned to Rebecca.
"Did Henry have many words with him?" she asked.
"They were talking very loud," replied Rebecca evasively, yet with
an answering gleam of ready response to the other's curiosity in
the quick lift of her soft blue eyes.
Mrs. Brigham looked at her. She had not resumed rocking. She
still sat up straight with a slight knitting of intensity on her
fair forehead, between the pretty rippling curves of her auburn
hair.
"Did you--hear anything?" she asked in a low voice with a glance
toward the door.
"I was just across the hall in the south parlour, and that door was
open and this door ajar," replied Rebecca with a slight flush.
"Then you must have--"
"I couldn't help it."
"Everything?"
"Most of it."
"What was it?"
"The old story."
"I suppose Henry was mad, as he always was, because Edward was
living on here for nothing, when he had wasted all the money father
left him."
Rebecca nodded with a fearful glance at the door.
When Emma spoke again her voice was still more hushed. "I know how
he felt," said she. "He had always been so prudent himself, and
worked hard at his profession, and there Edward had never done
anything but spend, and it must have looked to him as if Edward was
living at his expense, but he wasn't."
"No, he wasn't."
"It was the way father left the property--that all the children
should have a home here--and he left money enough to buy the food
and all if we had all come home."
"Yes."
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