His mother was at home, but he was told Christina was occupying the little villa he had bought at Inverkip. He had not been asked for its use, and it contained a good deal of Theodora's needlework, and much summer clothing. For a few minutes he was angry, but he quickly reasoned his anger away. "There are no happy memories about any of the things. It is better they should not come into our future life," he said to himself. He wondered his mother did not come, and asked Jepson if she had been told. "Yes, she had been told, and had sent word 'she would be down as soon as dressed.'" It was an hour before she was dressed, and Robert felt the gloom and chill of waiting. Indeed, he was so uncomfortably cold, that he asked for a fire, and was standing before it enjoying its blaze and warmth when Mrs. Campbell entered. "Good gracious, Robert!" she cried, "a fire in August! I never heard tell of such a thing." "I am just from a warm, sunny country, mother, and I have also been ill, and so I feel the cold." "Well, well! Put a screen between me and the blaze. I am not auld enou' yet, to require a blaze in August." "To-morrow, it will be the first of September. How are you, mother?" "Fine. That foolish fellow you left over the works came here--came special, mind ye--to tell me you were vera ill. He said he had received a letter from a Dr. Stuart, living in a place called Denver, saying you were at Death's door, or words to that effect; but I sent him back to his proper business wi' a solid rebuke for leaving it. I'm not the woman to thank any one for bringing me bad news--lies, too, very likely." "No, I was very ill." "Say so, where was there any necessity for the man to be sending word o' it half round the world? Nobody here could help. It was just making discomfort for no good at all." "I suppose he thought, if I died, my friends might possibly like to know what had become of me." "I wasna feared for you dying. Not I! I knew Robert Campbell had mair sense than to die among strangers. Then there was the works left to themselves, as it were, and that weary woman you've been seeking mair than four years, just found out, and I said to myself, if I know Robert Campbell, he won't be stravaganting to another world, whilst his affairs in this world are all helter-skelter." "I have come here to put my affairs as I desire them. Then I am going back to California." "I do not believe you. You are just leeing to me." "Mother, I am going to sell the works. I want to live in California." "To please Theodora," she said scornfully. "To please Theodora and myself. I like the country; it is sunny and delightful, and the people are wonderfully gracious and kind." "Of course, they have to be more than ordinary civil, or what decent people would live among the crowd that went there?" "That element has disappeared. There are no finer men and women in the world than the Californians. I shall ask for citizenship among them."