Truman. She was a very peculiar woman, as you doubtless know.”

“Yes,” mother agreed. “But she had no other relatives, and I should have been there.”

“I know you should,” assented Mr. Chester, visibly ill at ease. “But I really had no option [Pg 27]in the matter. Let me explain. My place happens to adjoin Mrs. Nelson’s, and so we got to know each other, though not nearly so well as neighbours usually do. I am a lawyer by profession, and she entrusted a few of her business affairs to my hands—among other things, the making of her will. She enjoined me strictly that under no circumstances were you to be informed of her death until after the funeral—”

[Pg 27]

“After the funeral!” repeated mother, mechanically.

“Which took place yesterday.”

“Oh, this is worse than I thought!” said mother, miserably. “I should have been there, Mr. Chester! She was still angry with me, then. We—we had a disagreement many years ago; but I had hoped she had long since forgotten it.”

“My dear Mrs. Truman,” protested Mr. Chester, quickly, “please put that thought out of your mind. Mrs. Nelson was not in the least angry with you—as you will see. Her not desiring you at her funeral was simply another of her peculiarities. She was very old, you know,” he went on, hesitatingly, as though uncertain how much he should say, “and in her last years took up some queer beliefs. I don’t know just what they were, but I do know that [Pg 28]she belonged to no church, and that she also forbade that any minister should be present at her funeral.”

[Pg 28]

Mother gasped, and sank back in her chair staring at him with eyes dark with dismay.

“However,” he hastened to add, “there were some lengths to which I did not feel justified in going—and there was a minister present.”

Mother drew a breath of relief.

“I am glad of that,” she said. “But why have you come to tell me all this, Mr. Chester?”

“I came to take you back with me for the reading of the will.”

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