His wife died within three years, some say from a broken heart, some say from homesickness, leaving a boy child six months old. At this point Benjamin Arsdale's name disappeared even from the magazines, and save to a very few people he was as though dead and buried beneath his odd house. An old Frenchman, his wife, and his son Jacques Moisson seemed content to live there and look after the household duties. Some ten years later a little girl of nine appeared, a niece of Arsdale's, it was said, and this completed the household, though old Père Moisson died in the course of time, leaving his wife and Jacques as a sort of legacy to his old master, for a body-guard. The only reports of the inmates to the outside world came through the other servants who were employed here from time to time, and the most they had to say was that Arsdale was "queer," and they did n't think it was the place to bring up young children, though the master did adore the very ground they walked on. When the children were older, Arsdale was seen at concerts and the theatre with them, but seemed to resent any attempt on the part of well meaning acquaintances to renew social ties. People remarked upon how old for his age he had grown, and some spoke in a whisper of the spirituality of his features. So much every one knew and that was nothing. What Elaine Arsdale, whom he had legally adopted, knew, was what caused the white light about the bowed head of the man. When she first learned she could not tell, but as a very young girl she remembered days when he came to her with his face very white and tense, and in his eyes the terror of one in great pain, and said to her, "Little girl, will you sit with me a bit?" So she would take a seat by the window in the library and he would face her very quietly with his long fingers twined around the chair arms. He would not speak and she knew that he did not wish her to speak. He wished for her only to sit there where he could see her. She was never afraid, but at times there came into his eyes a look that tempted her to cry. Sometimes an hour, sometimes two hours passed, and then he would rise to his feet and walk unsteadily towards her and say, "Now I may kiss your forehead, Elaine." He would kiss her, and shortly after fall into a deep sleep of exhaustion.