“Mother was so pleased and so astonished when she heard from June about meeting you. She used to know you well, she said--a long time ago, before she was married.” Her eyes looked innocently and gravely into his. There was no concealment in them. She was speaking frankly and honestly. Now the Colonel knew she had been sent. He braced himself for her coming words. “Yes, I knew your mother,” he said, hearing his voice sound husky. “But, as you say, it was a long time ago.” “Mother got quite excited when she heard it was you. You know she’s not well and the least thing upsets her. She couldn’t believe it at first. Then she wondered if you wouldn’t come up and see her and sent me down to ask you.” Alice had sent her. After twenty-one years Alice had sent this message for him! And it was all so natural and simple--a moment that sometimes, in hours of melancholy brooding, he had thought of, and always seen fraught with tragic passion. He bent to pick up a locust blossom that a wandering zephyr had wafted along the balcony floor. For a moment he made no answer. He could not trust his voice. The girl continued, not noticing his silence. “She doesn’t see many people. She’s sick, you know; June said she told you. And then there’s not many people round here for her to see. I suppose you’ll find her changed if you haven’t seen her since she was married. She’s changed a good deal lately, poor mother!” She gave a sigh and looked away from him. The Colonel answered quickly: “Oh, yes, I’ll come, I’ll come.” His visitor did not seem to notice anything unusual in his manner of accepting the invitation of an old friend. The trouble of her mother’s changed condition was uppermost in her mind. “I dare say you won’t know it’s the same person. But don’t let her see that. We want her to be bright and cheerful, and if people look surprised when they see her it makes her think she’s worse--” She looked anxiously at him, but his face was averted. There was a slight pause and then she said in a low voice: “Mother has consumption, Colonel Parrish.” This time he turned and stared straight at her. Her eyes, full of sad meaning, were fixed on him. The other daughter’s remarks had led him to suppose that Alice was suffering from some temporary illness. Now he knew that she was dying. “It was Virginia City that did it,” the girl continued. “She wasn’t strong for years. A long time ago in Downieville our brother, younger than we were, died, and father always thought she never got over that. But in Virginia there were such hard winters and those awful winds blew so! We were there for two years before we came here; and she had pneumonia and after that she didn’t get well. But we stayed on there, for father had some work in the assay office, and though everything cost a terrible price, it was better than what he got in the mines over here.” The Colonel was half turned from her in his chair. She could see his profile with the shaggy brows drawn over his eyes.