The rector slowly shook his head, and the movement might have been one that he would have used in acquiescence to the odd whim of a child.  Mr. Parr led the way up the wide staircase to the corridor above, traversing chamber after chamber, turning on the lights.

“These were my wife’s rooms,” he said, “they are just as she left them.  And these my daughter Alison’s, when she chooses to pay me a visit.  I didn’t realize that I should have to spend the last years of my life alone.  And I meant, when I gave my wife a house, to have it the best in the city.  I spared nothing on it, as you see, neither care nor money.  I had the best architect I could find, and used the best material.  And what good is it to me?  Only a reminder—­of what might have been.  But I’ve got a boy, Hodder,—­I don’t know whether I’ve ever spoken of him to you—­Preston.  He’s gone away, too.  But I’ve always had the hope that he might come back and get decently married, and live, here.  That’s why I stay.  I’ll show you his picture.”

They climbed to the third floor, and while Mr. Parr way searching for the electric switch, a lightning flash broke over the forests of the park, prematurely revealing the room.  It was a boy’s room, hung with photographs of school and college crews and teams and groups of intimates, with deep window seats, and draped pennons of Harvard University over the fireplace.  Eldon Parr turned to one of the groups on the will, the earliest taken at school.

“There he is,” he said, pointing out a sunny little face at the bottom, a boy of twelve, bareheaded, with short, crisping yellow hair, smiling lips and laughing eyes.  “And here he is again,” indicating another group.  Thus he traced him through succeeding years until they came to those of college.

“There he is,” said the rector.  “I think I can pick him out now.”

“Yes; that’s Preston,” said his father, staring hard at the picture.  The face had developed, the body had grown almost to man’s estate, but the hint of crispness was still in the hair, the mischievous laughter in the eyes.  The rector gazed earnestly at the face, remembering his own boyhood, his own youth, his mind dwelling, too, on what he had heard of the original of the portrait.  What had happened to the boy, to bring to naught the fair promise of this earlier presentment?

He was aroused by the voice of Eldon Parr, who had sunk into one of the leather chairs.

“I can see him now,” he was saying, “as he used to come running down that long flight of stone steps in Ransome Street to meet me when I came home.  Such laughter!  And once, in his eagerness, he fell and cut his forehead.  I shall never forget how I felt.  And when I picked him up he tried to laugh still, with the tears rolling down his face.  You know the way a child’s breath catches, Hodder?  He was always laughing.  And how he used to cling to me, and beg me to take him out, and show such an interest in everything!  He was a bright boy,