One of My Sons

r his brother Leighton came running up the stairs at sound of his child's voice, I noticed the same recoil on her part, followed by the same impassibil

hree men. In Alfred this chilling conduct awakened emotions only too easy to read; in Leighton, surprise, and in George, a distrust bordering upon a passion so fierce that he turned from white to red and fr

d of my story. Happily, I was able to hide them from other eyes, and simply showed a na

stairs while you were in Alfred's room. That was very soon after you laid the old gentleman out of you

in the attic with you. Yet she may have been somewhere in t

. I believe she was not what people call beautiful. She did not need to be; her charm was incontestable w

ok of her eyes, and the fierce clutch of her hands behind her, that some determination was absorbing all her energies; a determination little in accord, I fear, with the attitude of simple grief she

on the scene of so young and charming a lady, advanced at this jun

sistant, you are justified in your grief. Mr. Gillespie

not shift her eyes from the point where she had fixed them. Perhaps she dreaded

med Dr. Frisbie with the encouragement in his tone w

N

on which showed her to be a woman of force, notwiths

he continued with a glance at Claire wh

up to this moment she had probably not noticed. "No, she has said nothing; at least nothing that I have heard." And her hand went out as i

will communicate to you our conclusions in this matter," said

eyes stealing towards th

surely have no

time she let her gaze fall on each one of her cousins in succession. "My uncle se

ith a stern look behind him at the

!" she suddenly emphasised, her tone rising in sudden

sound she shrank as if heart-pierced, and put up her hands-those tell-tale hands-and covered her ears; then she as

d-time sociability had I but known it would have been hi

and the physician lingering near my side, both look and words fell with a weight

ed with deep emotion. "Was Mr. Gillespie in the habit of sharing his wine with tho

of his sons. It is the coincidence that affects me. But I should not have mentione

ck banner of suspicion over the heads of her three cousins. But the blank silence which followed her words appeared to give her some ide

rom me. How did my uncle die

nger-ends in restrained passion, alone stepped forward to her aid, though in a deprecatory way which robbed him of a large part of his natural grace. But she appeared in

e have reason to think he took it some time later tha

ell unheeded. She had fa