So it was a beautiful winter for them both. Naturally there was the fact of Ida that had to be faced. That was tremendously hard at first. He constantly felt her grieving for him, for the failure of all his hopes, the wreck of all a man holds so precious. And there were all the details of Ida's sickness and death to be gone over with her mother--the things she had done just before. How she looked; the quantity of flowers; even what she wore for her burial. Instinctively Haldane knew how dear these matters were to her, and he went over them faithfully, effacing his own bitterness of memory as best he might. When Mrs. Locke hesitatingly asked him one evening if--if Ida had--had _said_ anything--left any message for _her_, Haldane's heart ached for her; Ida had left no message. He softened it as best he might. "You see, she didn't know, couldn't know, that--that she was going to die. It was all so sudden, you know, so awfully sudden." Mrs. Locke nodded. "Yes--I see. Poor Ida! She did so much for me always." After a month or so, quite unconsciously, they ceased to mention Ida. Haldane, when he thought of it at all--and that with relief--wondered vaguely why Ida's mother did not talk more about her. "Perhaps it's because she doesn't want to keep hurting me," he thought it out, "bless her!" Gradually the intimacy between Haldane and his mother--for she was quite that to him--grew into a relation that was as rare as it was tender. They both felt it keenly. Their talk was all of him, his affairs, his music. He played to her for hours in the evenings he was not at the orchestra; when he was teaching in the mornings she would steal into the room, and sit, sewing, in a corner, listening gratefully to the dreary routine of his pupils' exercises. She seemed never to tire of "being near Leonard." And always she was asking, "Won't you play a little from _the opera_, Leonard?" Once she said to him, with her timid smile: "It's like heaven, having so much music all the time. Seems as if all my life I've been just starved to death for tunes." Haldane bent and kissed her white hair. "Well, mother," he laughed, "it's quite a real piece of heaven to have you around the place." "You're spoiling me," she cried; "how can I ever go back to Iowa?" "Who said Iowa in this house?" he demanded of her. "You're to stay always--as long as you can stand me--_always_." "My son!" she kept murmuring after he had gone, as if she loved the words on her lips. "He's just the kind of son I used to hope I might have," she sighed. "I don't see--it's so strange why he's so good to me. I'm not at all like _her_. Ida was so sensible always, and I'm not at all--Ida always told me I couldn't take care of myself, that I was very foolish. I don't see why Leonard is so kind to me. It must be just because I'm her mother. Leonard must have loved her so much, and understood her. Poor Ida!" * * * * *