"That's just it--I kept it," Chase answered; "I knew one of us would want to take it. You'll have to wait over at Salisbury in the usual stupid way. But as Ruth can't be here in time for the funeral, it's not of vital importance. The only thing that riles me is that, owing to that confounded useless wait, you can't be on the dock to meet her when her steamer comes in at New York; you won't be able to get there in time. There'll be people, of course--I've telegraphed. But no one she knows as well as she knows you." Reaching the village, they walked quickly towards the railroad and finished their talk as they stood beside the waiting train. There was no station, the rails simply came to an end in the main street. A small frame structure, which bore the inscription "Blue Ridge Hotel," faced the end of the rails. "He's in there," said Chase, in a low tone, indicating a lighted window of this house; "that room on the ground-floor. And the old lady--she is sitting there beside him. She is quiet, she doesn't say anything. But she just sits there." "Mrs. Jared and Miss Dolly are with her, aren't they?" said the young clergyman. "Well, Dolly is keeping Gen in the other room across the hall as much as she _can_. For Dolly tells me that her mother likes best to sit there alone. Women, you know, about their sons--sometimes they're queer!" remarked Chase. "The mother's love--yes," Malachi answered, his voice uncertain for a moment. He swallowed. "There isn't a man who doesn't feel, sooner or later, after it has gone, that he hasn't prized it half enough--that it was the best thing he had! It was brain-fever, wasn't it?" he went on, hurriedly, to cover his emotion. For he, too, had been an only son. "Yes, and bad. He was raving; he knocked down one of the doctors. After the fever left him, it was just possible, they told me, that he might have pulled through, if he had only been stronger. But he was played out to begin with; I discovered that myself as soon as I reached Raleigh. Gen got there in time to see him. But the old lady was too late; and pretty hard lines for her! She kept telegraphing from different stations as she and Dolly hurried up from Charleston; and I did my best to hearten her by messages that met her here and there; but she missed it. By only half an hour. When I saw that it had come--that he was sinking and she wouldn't find him alive--I went out and just cursed, cursed the luck! For Gen had his last words, and everything. And his poor old mother had nothing at all." Here the conductor came up. "Ready?" said Chase. "All right, here's your through ticket, Hill--the one I bought for myself. And inside the envelope is a memorandum, with the number and street of our house in New York, and other items. I'm no end obliged to you for going." They shook hands cordially. "When you come back, don't let my wife travel straight through," added the husband. "Make her stop over and sleep."