Within the next month it happened that a terrible and unusual fatality was the occasion of the death of both Mrs. Parsons and her daughter.  They were killed by a fall of the elevator at the hotel in which they were living—­one of those dire casualties which are liable to happen to any one of us in these days of swift and complicated apparatus, but which always seem remote from personal experience.  This cruel blow of fate put an end to all desire on the part of the bereaved husband and father to remain in New York, whither he had come to live mainly to please his women folk, as he called them.  As soon as he recovered from the bewilderment of the shock, Mr. Parsons sent for the architect who had taken Littleton’s place, and who had just begun the subservient task of fusing diverse types of architecture in order to satisfy an American woman’s appetite for startling effect, and told him to arrange to dispose of the lot and its immature walls to the highest bidder.  His precise plans for the future were still uncertain when Selma called on him, and found comfort for her own miseries in ministering to his solitude, but he expressed an inclination to return to his native Western town, as the most congenial spot in which to end his days.  Selma, whose soul was full of Benham, suggested it as an alternative, enlarging with contagious enthusiasm on its civic merits.  The crushed old man listened with growing attention.  Already the germs of a plan for the disposition of his large property were sprouting in his mind to provide him with a refuge from despondency.  He was a reticent man, not in the habit of confiding his affairs until ready to act, but he paid interested heed to Selma’s eulogy of the bustling energy and rapid growth of Benham.  His preliminary thought had been that it would make him happy to endow his native town, which was a small and inconspicuous place, with a library building.  But, as his visitor referred to the attractions and admirable public spirit of the thriving city, which was in the same State as his own home, he silently reasoned that residence there need not interfere with his original project, and that he might find a wide and more important field for his benefactions in a community so representative of American ideas and principles.

Selma’s visits of condolence to Mr. Parsons were interrupted by the illness of her own husband.  In reflecting, subsequently, she remembered that he had seemed weary and out of sorts for several days, but her conscious attention was invoked by his coming home early in the afternoon, suffering from a violent chill, and manifestly in a state of physical collapse.  He went to bed at once; Selma brought blankets and a hot-water bottle, and Dr. George Page was sent for.  Dr. Page was the one of Littleton’s friends whom Selma had unsuccessfully yearned to know better.  She had never been able to understand him exactly, but he fascinated her in spite of—­perhaps because of—­his bantering manner.  She