But now Mr. Bygate, the lawyer, who had been in the house ever since the death, came forward to give deferential greetings and answer all questions, and Arthur walked with him towards the library, where his Aunt Lydia was expecting him.  Aunt Lydia was the only person in the house who knew nothing about Hetty.  Her sorrow as a maiden daughter was unmixed with any other thoughts than those of anxiety about funeral arrangements and her own future lot; and, after the manner of women, she mourned for the father who had made her life important, all the more because she had a secret sense that there was little mourning for him in other hearts.

But Arthur kissed her tearful face more tenderly than he had ever done in his life before.

“Dear Aunt,” he said affectionately, as he held her hand, “Your loss is the greatest of all, but you must tell me how to try and make it up to you all the rest of your life.”

“It was so sudden and so dreadful, Arthur,” poor Miss Lydia began, pouring out her little plaints, and Arthur sat down to listen with impatient patience.  When a pause came, he said: 

“Now, Aunt, I’ll leave you for a quarter of an hour just to go to my own room, and then I shall come and give full attention to everything.”

“My room is all ready for me, I suppose, Mills?” he said to the butler, who seemed to be lingering uneasily about the entrance-hall.

“Yes, sir, and there are letters for you; they are all laid on the writing-table in your dressing-room.”

On entering the small anteroom which was called a dressing-room, but which Arthur really used only to lounge and write in, he just cast his eyes on the writing-table, and saw that there were several letters and packets lying there; but he was in the uncomfortable dusty condition of a man who has had a long hurried journey, and he must really refresh himself by attending to his toilette a little, before he read his letters.  Pym was there, making everything ready for him, and soon, with a delightful freshness about him, as if he were prepared to begin a new day, he went back into his dressing-room to open his letters.  The level rays of the low afternoon sun entered directly at the window, and as Arthur seated himself in his velvet chair with their pleasant warmth upon him, he was conscious of that quiet well-being which perhaps you and I have felt on a sunny afternoon when, in our brightest youth and health, life has opened a new vista for us, and long to-morrows of activity have stretched before us like a lovely plain which there was no need for hurrying to look at, because it was all our own.

The top letter was placed with its address upwards:  it was in Mr. Irwine’s handwriting, Arthur saw at once; and below the address was written, “To be delivered as soon as he arrives.”  Nothing could have been less surprising to him than a letter from Mr. Irwine at that moment:  of course, there was something he wished Arthur to know earlier than it was possible for them to see each other.  At such a time as that it was quite natural that Irwine should have something pressing to say.  Arthur broke the seal with an agreeable anticipation of soon seeing the writer.