"Marcus!" cried Abbie, as her brother moved towards her, "Marcus, why didn't you come? I waited at the door to let you in. Could anybody have made any trouble at such a time as that?"
He came up to her with a few unsteady steps. His eyes were blood-shot, and on his face, which seemed paler and thinner than ever under the white flood from the globe overhead, there was a long, half-healed scar. He looked at her in a dull, dazed way; perhaps he simply misapprehended these present words, perhaps he was unable to fully comprehend any words at all.
"You could have gone in a carriage all alone with me," she went on, in pitiful reproach. "And you could have stayed in it--you needn't have seen anybody else at all. I wanted you so much. Mayme came; why couldn't you? Oh, Marcus, you were thought of; your name was almost the last one said."
She threw her head on his shoulder and burst into tears. He gave way a little, and then, with an effort, he mastered a steadier pose.
Her crape brushed his face; he felt it, rather than saw it.
"Is he dead?" Something like light came into his dull eye. The lamp above gave a sudden vast flicker, and the long scar on his face deepened and lengthened and came back to itself again. It was all like a sinister and cynical smile.
"Marcus! don't you know? Where have you been? Haven't you got any of my letters?"
He leaned against the silly rusticity of the summer-house, and looked at her with a dazed but inquiring eye.
"It's mother! It's mother!" the poor girl cried. "Why didn't you come?"
"Why, how is this?" asked Cornelia, stepping forward. "Hadn't he heard?"
"I mailed them to the same place. And the money--didn't you get that, either?"
He looked at her steadily and soberly, but his eyes had a heavy droop. "It's mother," he said at length; "it's mother that's dead." He sat down carefully on the steps of the summerhouse. "And my name was the last. Always the last, Abbie. When was it?"
"Has he moved--do you suppose?" asked Cornelia. She regarded him long and steadily. She seemed about to recognize him--though voice was apparently counting for more than face.
"It was only day before yesterday," Abbie said. "I tried to see you, but it was so far and there was so much to do. But I sent you word."