Collis,

It is with great sadness that I have to write to tell you that your dear father has passed away. He died of his heart ailment only three days after you set sail from New York, despite the best efforts of his doctors to save him. The strain of his business problems and the many personal difficulties he was having to face were all too much for him.

I suppose you will expect me to say that his passing was inevitable, and that I will forgive your conduct towards him in the last few days of his life. But I would not be true to my feelings if I said that. There was much that you did that was selfish and senseless, and which only served to aggravate your father’s burden of ill health. It is possible that I will forgive you in time, but while I am in mourning I would prefer not to hear from you, or of you.

Your sister Maude and I are as well as might be expected. We are going to stay with friends in Sherman, Connecticut, who have a small cottage in their grounds. Your father’s old friend Neiman Bennett is acting as executor, and he is being most generous with his time in settling the complications of your father’s estate.

I am sure that you will join me in my prayers for the eternal rest of your dear father’s soul; and I know that you will reflect for many years to come on how thoughtlessness towards others brings only sorrow, pain, and grief.

I am,

Your Mother

Collis read the letter twice, and then folded it up. He raised his eyes to the lines of men waiting outside the post office, and saw two or three men like himself, standing with torn-open letters in their hands, their faces saddened and numbed. He couldn’t hold back a deep sob in his throat, and the man in the dungarees shifted his position and regarded him with even more obvious curiosity. He could hardly believe that his father was gone; his argumentative father with his broad black-vested abdomen that had always seemed to Collis like some permanent and enduring edifice, as solid and invincible as the bow of a man-of-war, or the buttresses of a church. He tried to imagine what his father had looked like, tried to picture the erratic eye and the grey moustache, but somehow he could only recall that childhood image of his father’s vest, with its long gold watch chain.

So, Makepeace Edmonds was gone, and already interred, no doubt watched over by a white marble angel.

Collis opened the second letter. It was written on thin, flimsy paper, and he had to spread it across his knee with the side of his hand. On the head of the letter was written ‘Orangeburg, South Carolina’. It was from Alice Stride.