They remained silent after that until the end, their tense fingers
interlocked. Miss Quest's head remained bowed in the folds of her crape
veil.
The drive from the cemetery began through the level, rosy rays of a
declining sun, and ended in soft spring darkness full of the cheery
noises of populous streets.
Cleland had dreaded to enter the house as they drew near to it; its
prospective emptiness appalled him; but old Meacham had lighted every
light all over the house; and it seemed to help, somehow.
Miss Quest went with Stephanie to her room, leaving Jim in the library
alone.
Strange, irrelevant thoughts came to the boy's mind to assail him,
torment him with their futility: he remembered several things which he
had forgotten to tell his father--matters of no consequence which now
suddenly assumed agonizing importance.
There in the solitude of the library, he remembered, among other things,
that his father would never read his novel, now. Why had he waited,
wishing to have it entirely finished before his father should read this
first beloved product of his eager pen?
Stephanie found him striding about the library, lips distorted,
quivering with swelling grief.
"Oh, Steve," he said, seeing her in the doorway, "I am beginning to
realize that I can't talk to him any more! I can't touch him--I can't
talk--hear his voice--see----"
"Jim--_don't_----"
"The whole world is no good to me now!" cried the boy, flinging up his
arms in helpless resentment toward whatever had done this thing to him.
Whatever had done it offered no excuse.
*CHAPTER XII.*
The reading of John Cleland's will marked the beginning of the end of
the old regime for Stephanie Quest and for James Cleland.
Two short letters accompanied the legal document. All the papers were of
recent date.
The letter directed to Jim was almost blunt in its brevity: