Ten days later, in the midst of her preparations to leave the city for Clark’s Hills, Rachael was summoned to the telephone by the news of a serious change in young Charlie Gregory’s condition.  Charlie had been ill for perhaps a week; kept at home and babied by his grandmother and Miss Cannon, the nurse, visited daily by his adored Aunt Rachael, and nearly as often by the uproarious young Gregorys, and duly spoiled by every maid in the house.  Warren went in to see him often in the evenings, for trivial as his illness was, all the members of his immediate family agreed later that there had been in it, from the beginning, something vaguely alarming and menacing.

He was a quiet, peculiar, rather friendless youth at twenty-six; he had never had “girls,” like the other boys, and, while he read books incessantly, Rachael knew it to be rather from loneliness than any other motive, as his silence was from shyness rather than reserve.  His dying was as quiet as his living, between a silent luncheon in the gloomy old dining-room when nobody seemed able either to eat or speak, and a dreadful dinner hour when Miss Cannon sobbed unobtrusively, Warren and Rachael talked in low tones, and the chairs at the head and foot of the table were untenanted.

Only a day or two later his grandmother followed him, and Rachael and her husband went through the sombre days like two persons in an oppressive dream.  Great grief they did not naturally feel, for Warren’s curious self-absorption extended even to his relationship with his mother, and Charlie had always been one of the unnecessary, unimportant figures of which there are a few in every family.  But the events left a lasting mark upon Rachael’s life.  She had grown really to love the old woman, and had felt a certain pitying affection for Charlie, too.  He had been a good, gentle, considerate boy always, and it was hard to think of him as going before life had really begun for him.

On the morning of the day he died an incident had occurred, or rather two had occurred, that even then filled her with vague discomfort, and that she was to remember for many days to come.

She had been crossing the great, dark entrance hall, late in the morning, on some errand to the telephone, or to the service department of the house, her heart burdened by the sombre shadow of death that already lay upon them all, when the muffled street-door bell had rung, and the butler, red eyed, had admitted two women.  Rachael, caught and reluctantly glancing toward them, had been surprised to recognize Charlotte Haviland and old Fanny.

“Charlotte!” she said, coming toward the girl.  And at her low, tense tone, Charlotte had begun to cry.

“Aunt Rachael”—­the old name came naturally after seven years—­ “you’ll think I’m quite crazy coming here this way”—­Charlotte, as always, was justifying her shy little efforts at living—­“but M’ma was busy, and”—­the old, nervous gasp—­“and it seemed only friendly to come and—­and inquire—­”