It was the day after the funeral; I was tired, out, and had lain down on the sofa in the dining-room, partly because I hated to be alone up-stairs, and partly because it was not far from lunch-time, and I felt too weary to take any needless steps. I don't think ever in my life before I had lain down on that sofa, or had spent two hours except, at the table, in that room. It was a most cheerless room, and no one ever thought of sitting down in it, except at mealtime. I closed the shutters and darkened it to suit my eyes, which ached, and I think must have fallen asleep. The parlor was the room which adjoined the dining-room (only two large rooms on one floor, as they used to build), and separated from it by heavy mahogany columns and sliding-doors. These doors were half-way open, and I was roused by voices in the parlor. As soon as I recovered myself from the sudden waking, I recognized Sophie's and then Richard's. I wondered what Richard was doing up-town at that hour, and so Sophie did too, for she asked him very plainly. "I thought I ought to come to see Pauline," she said, "but I did not suppose I should find you here in the middle of the day." "There is something that I've got to see Pauline about at once," he said, "and so I was obliged to come up-town." "Nothing has happened?" she said interrogatively. "No," he answered, evasively. But she went on: "I suppose it's something in relation to the will; I hope she's well provided for, poor thing." "Sophie," said her brother, with a change of tone, "You'll have to hear it some time, and perhaps you may as well hear it now. It is that that I have come up-town about; there has been some strange mistake made; there is no will." "No will!" echoed Sophie, "Why, you told me once--" "That he had left her everything. So he told me twice last year; so I have always believed to be the case. Since the day he died, the most faithful search has been made; there is not a corner of his office, of his library, of his room, that I have not hunted through. He was so methodical in business matters, so exact in the care of his papers, that I had little hope, after I had gone through his desk. I cannot understand it. It is altogether dark to me." "What can have made him change his mind about it, Richard? Can he have heard anything about last summer?" "Not from me, Sophie. But I have sometimes thought he knew, from allusions that he has made to her mother's marriage, more than once this winter." "He was very angry about that, at the time, I suppose?" "Yes, I imagine so. The man she married was poor, and a foreigner: two things he hated. I never heard there was anything against him but his poverty." "How can he have heard about Mr. Langenau?" said Sophie, musingly. "I think Pauline must have told him," said Richard. "Pauline? never. She is much too clever; she never told him. You may be quite sure of _that_."