Lighting a candle and shielding it with her hand,
she gazed long and earnestly at Reuther's sweet face. Yes, she was
right. Sorrow was slowly sapping the fountain of her darling's
youth. If Reuther was to be saved, hope must come soon. With a sob
and a prayer, the mother left the room, and locking herself into
her own, sat down at last to face the new perplexity, the
monstrous enigma which had come into her life.
It had followed in natural sequence from a proposal made by the
judge that some attention should be given his long-neglected
rooms. He had said on rising from the breakfast table--(the words
are more or less important):
"I am really sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Scoville; but if you have
time this morning, will you clean up my study before I leave? The
carriage is ordered for half-past nine."
The task was one she had long desired to perform, and would have
urged upon him daily had she dared, but the limitations he set for
its accomplishment struck her aghast.
"Do you mean that you wish to remain there while I work? You will
be choked, Judge."
"No more than I have been for the last two days. You may enter any
time." And going in, he left the door open behind him.
"He will lock it when he goes out," she commented to herself. "I
had better hasten."
Giving Reuther the rest of the work to do, she presently appeared
before him with pail and broom and a pile of fresh linen. Nothing
more commonplace could be imagined, but to her, if not to him,
there underlay this especial act of ordinary housewifery a
possible enlightenment on a subject which had held the whole
community in a state of curiosity for years.
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