Mr. Renton died that night; and it was on a very sad and silent house that the moon rose--the same moon which he had watched shining on Laurie’s boat. Mrs. Renton, poor soul, shut herself up in her room, taking refuge in illness, as had been her habit all her life, with Mary nursing and weeping over her. Aunt Lydia, worn out with watching, went to bed as soon as ‘all was over.’ The lads were left alone. They huddled together in the library where all the shutters had been closed, and one lamp alone burned dimly on the table. Only last night there had still been floods of light and great windows open to the sky. They gathered about the table together, not knowing what to do. Nothing could be done that night. It was too soon to talk of plans, and of their altered life. They could not read anything that would have amused their minds; that would have been a sin against the proprieties of grief; so the poor fellows gathered round the dim lamp, and tried to talk, with now and then something that choked them climbing into their throats.
‘Have you any idea what he could mean by that,--about me,--about it being hard?’ said Ben, resting his head on both his hands, and gazing steadfastly with two dilated eyes into the light of the lamp.
‘I don’t think he could mean anything,’ said Laurie, ‘unless it was the responsibility. What else could it be?’
‘There must always have been the responsibility,’ said Ben. ‘He spoke as if it were something more.’
‘His mind was wandering,’ said Laurie; and then there was a long pause. It was broken by Frank with a sudden outburst.
‘Ben, you’ll be awfully good to poor mamma,’ cried the boy; ‘she can’t bear things as we can.’ The two elder ones held their breath tightly when Frank’s sob disturbed the quiet;--they were too much men to sob with him,--and yet there came that convulsive contraction of the throat. The only thing to be done was to grasp each other’s hands silently, not daring to look into each other’s faces, and to go to bed,--to take refuge in darkness and solitude, and that soft oblivion of sleep, universal asylum of humanity, to which one gains access so easily when one is young! Stealthily, on tiptoe, each one of Mr. Renton’s sons paid a secret visit to the dimly-lighted room, all shrouded and covered, with faint puffs of night air stealing in like spirits through the shuttered windows, where their father lay all quiet and at rest. True tears,--genuine sorrow was in all their hearts; and yet----