Chapter XVI

Late in the afternoon of the day following our visit to Liverpool we ascended the big stone steps of my old home and pulled the bell. After all, I found that my nerves were not quite steady while we were waiting for the door to open. We had come intending to spend the night there, and my benefactor had given me certain precautions not calculated to make me feel entirely at home. Was there some deeper plan underlying his suggestion as to this visit than he had chosen to explain? I had not long to consider that point, however, for suddenly the door opened and a servant in imposing livery confronted us. I handed him my card and we were shown into the reception room at once. Presently he conducted us to my stepmother, who greeted me with a great show of cordiality and some tears. She had grown old fast since I left home, but she had artfully disguised the evidences of age upon her face and neck. Why had I stayed away so long? What had she done to deserve such shameful neglect? These and other questions taxed my wits for an answer that would neither outrage my own conscience nor offend her. Mr. Cobb, who had just returned from his office, suddenly entered the room. His face assumed an ashen pallor, and he stared at me quite dumfounded for a moment, when I arose and stood before him.

"It is Kendric. Don't you recognize him?" said my stepmother.

"So it is!" he exclaimed. "But he's grown quite out of my recollection." The man had recovered his self-possession in a moment, and treated me, it must be said to his credit, with marked coolness. I was likely to get on with him very well, I thought, but the fawning attitude of his wife quite unhorsed me. If I am to see the devil I'd rather he'd frown than smile. Cobb had very little to say to us, and left the room at the first opportunity. In doing so he had shown scant consideration for his wife, however, as it left a burden upon her shoulders that must have taxed her strength. But she was not unequal to it. Her smile broadened after he had gone, and there was a tone of deeper sincerity in her expressions of regard. We had been to dinner, and if she would kindly send a little cold lunch to our room at bedtime that would be quite sufficient. During her absence for dinner the reaction came. When my stepmother returned she seemed to have suddenly grown older, and she looked at us through haggard and sunken eyes. Surely this was a terrible punishment she was undergoing, and I pitied her. Mr. Cobb had an important engagement to keep, she said, and hoped we would excuse him. Slowly the evening wore away and at ten o'clock we were shown to our room, greatly fatigued by this trying experience. It was a room fronting the street on the third floor, which I had occupied before I left home. The walls had been painted white since then, with a frieze of gold along the ceiling. My father used to sleep in the room directly under it. Rayel had been silent and absent-minded