Thus John’s thoughts ran as he entered the house, and bade the Lawton girl tell her mistress he wished to speak with her. He had not seen Isabel since her husband’s death--she having kept her room constantly--nor for a long time previous. They had, indeed, scarcely met more than half-a-dozen times since she came to live at the homestead, and then with considerable formality on both sides. As he stood by the stove in the living-room, awaiting her coming, he knitted his brows and framed some curt, terse words of address. She entered, clad in the same black and dark-gray wrapper which his memory associated with his mother’s funeral, and which gave the effect of height and slender dignity to her figure. Her face was pale and pathetic in expression, and the ghost of a smile which flitted in greeting over it for a second accentuated its stamp of suffering. She offered him her hand, and said, in a low mournful voice: “It was good of you to come to me, John. I have been expecting, hoping you would. Won’t you take off your coat and sit down?” He had shaken hands with her, loosened his overcoat and taken a seat before he had time to reflect that he ought to have ignored her greeting and her proffered hand. The sharp words, too, that he had arranged in his mind seemed too brusque now to utter to a weak, lone woman who was so evidently suffering. “Yes,” he said, “I thought I ought to talk things over with you. You’ve got nobody else.” “No--not a soul! I couldn’t be more wholly alone if I were at the North Pole, it has seemed to me this last day. I have eaten nothing; I haven’t slept an hour. So you must make allowances for me,” she said, with a weak shadow of a smile, “if I seem nervous or incoherent. My mind goes all astray, sometimes now, and I seem unequal to the task of controlling it.” He had thought at last of a question which might introduce the desired subject without wounding her feelings. “Do you happen to know,” he asked, gently, “whether Albert brought a large sum of money with him from New York Monday?” “I haven’t the least idea, I am sure. In fact, I only saw him for a moment after his return. And besides, you know, he never told me a syllable about his business arrangements. No one could be in more complete ignorance of his affairs than I have always been.” There was the tone of resigned regret in her voice which a wife might rightly use. “I do indeed--there is one exception--know about his will. He told me that, not by way of confidence, but because it came out--in some words we once had about property of mine in New York. I might as well tell you. The will gives everything except my third to you and your aunt and--your brother. _He_ has the lion’s share. Don’t think I am complaining, John. I wouldn’t have had it altered if I could. I am more than independent, you know, apart from right of dower. If I had had the making of the will, it would have been just the same. It is only right that his money should go to his family.”