into a chair with his head buried in his hands. I saw his face crimson through his fingers.
"It's not murder," Mr. Cope said to me as I crossed the threshold, "but it has just missed being suicide. It has been fatal only to the looking-glass." The mirror was shivered.
"It is murder," I answered, seizing Eustace by the arm and forcing him to rise. "You have killed your mother. This is your father!"
My friend paused and looked at me with a triumphant air, as if she was very proud of her effect. Of course I had foreseen it half an hour ago. "What a dismal tale," I said. "But it's interesting. Of course Mrs. Cope recovered."
She was silent an instant. "You're like me," she answered. "Your imagination is timid."
"I confess," I rejoined, "I am rather at a loss how to dispose of our friend Eustace. I don't see how the two could very well shake hands—nor yet how they couldn't."
"They did once—and but once. They were for years, each in his way, lonely men. They were never reconciled. The trench had been dug too deep. Even the poor lady buried there didn't avail to fill it up. Yet the son was forgiven—the father never!"
