She was dressed in black silk, but wore no widow's weeds; her husband, the first Sir Humphrey, had been dead four years. The young gentleman threw himself into a chair. Lady Woodroffe nodded to her secretary, who gathered up her papers and retreated to the back drawing-room, closing the door. "Well, mother," said the boy, carelessly, "we've buried the old woman." "Yes. I hope you were not too much distressed, Humphrey. I am pleased that you went to the funeral, if only to gratify the servants." "How could I refuse to attend her funeral?--an old servant like that. It's a beastly thing--a funeral,--and a beastly nuisance." "We must not forget her services," the lady replied. "It was in return for those services that I kept her here, and nursed her through her old age. One does not encumber one's self with sick old women except in such cases as this." "No, thank goodness." The young man was in no gracious mood. "Give me a servant who takes her wages and goes off, without asking for our gratitude." "Still, she was your nurse--and a good nurse." "Too ostentatious of her affection, especially towards the end." "She was also"--Lady Woodroffe pursued her own thoughts, which was her way--"a silent woman; a woman who could be trusted, if necessary, with secrets--family secrets." "Thank goodness, we've got none. From family secrets, family skeletons, family ghosts, good Lord, deliver us!" "There are secrets, or skeletons, in every family, I suppose. Fortunately, we forget some, and we never hear of others. You are fortunate, Humphrey, that you are free from the vexation--or the shame--or the shock--of family secrets, which mean family scandals. Now, at all events, you are perfectly safe, because there is no one living who can create a family ghost for you, or provide you with a skeleton." Humphrey laughed lightly. "Let the dead bury their dead," he replied. "So long as I know nothing about the skeleton, it can go on grinning in the cupboard, for aught I care. "Did I tell you," the young man continued, after a pause, "of her last words?" "What last words?" "I thought I had told you. Curious words they were. I suppose her mind was wandering." "Humphrey," said his mother, sharply, "what did she say? What words?" "Well, they sent for me. It was just before the end. She was lying apparently asleep, her eyes shut. I thought she was going. The nurse was at the other end of the room, fussing with the tea-cups. Then she opened her eyes and saw me. She whispered, 'Low down, low down, Master Humphrey.' So I stooped down, and she said, 'Don't blame her, Master Humphrey. I persuaded her, and we kept it up, for your sake. Nobody suspects. All for your sake I kept it up,' Then she closed her eyes, and opened them no more." "What do you understand by those words, Humphrey?"