"That's the most dreadful part," went on Cecily. "The shock was so great that the father died a week afterward--the doctors said virtually of a broken heart. So there were two gone, and within a month. The two that were left, Miss Benedict and her sister, shut themselves up and went into mourning and saw almost no one. For a while they were paralyzed with grief. And then, little by little, very gradually, they began to realize that people were talking about them--saying dreadful things. One of the few friends they _did_ see let drop little hints of the gossip that was going on outside. People were saying that they were to blame for it all, and that they probably weren't so sorry as they pretended to be, for now they could enjoy all the money themselves. Can you imagine anything so horrid?" "Oh, but that's nonsense!" interrupted Janet impatiently. "How could any one say it was their fault?" "Well, you know how people talk," replied Cecily. "They meant that by nagging and quarreling they had driven the brother away on purpose, and then made it so unpleasant for the father that he couldn't stand it any longer either. It wasn't said in so many words, but just little hints and allusions and shrugging shoulders and all that sort of thing. But the meaning was there underneath it all, as plain as anything. "Their grief and the horrid talk about them made them feel so very badly that they determined to live in such a way that no one could accuse them of enjoying an ill-gotten fortune. So they shut up the house,--at least a large part of it,--and dismissed all their servants, and did most of the work themselves. After a while the few friends they had began to drop away, one by one, till no one came to see them any more. "And then one day, two or three years later, the older sister had a paralytic stroke and lost her memory. She's been shut up in that room ever since, and Miss Benedict takes care of her. She can sit up in a chair and knit, and she likes to have a chess-board on her lap, and move the pieces around, because she once loved to play the game with her younger brother. But she can't remember anything--not even who she is herself, and nothing about what has happened. Miss Benedict feels terribly about her, especially about her not remembering anything, and she says that is why she didn't tell me about her at first. It seemed so terrible. "She says all the friends and relatives they had are dead and gone now, so no one knows the real reason for their queer life. And as the years have passed she has grown more and more into the habit of living this way till it seemed quite natural to her--at least it did till I came; and now she is beginning to realize again that it _is_ queer. And she was so afraid of gossip and talk that when you first wanted to be friends with me she would not allow it, for fear of starting more unpleasant inquiries into her life." "But what about her poor eyes?" asked Janet.