Page:Early Autumn (1926).pdf/70

 Olivia made a little gesture with her white, ringless hands. "Why not?"

"Because people don't forget things like that . . . not in our world, at any rate."

Quietly, far back in her mind, Olivia kept trying to imagine this Horace Pentland whom she had never seen, this shadowy old man, dead now, who had been exiled for thirty years.

"You have no reason for not wanting him here among all the others?"

"No . . . Horace is dead now. . . . It can't matter much whether what's left of him is buried here or in France."

"Except, of course, that they may have been kinder to him over there. . . . They're not so harsh."

A silence fell over them, as if in some way the spirit of Horace Pentland, the sinner whose name was never spoken in the family save between Olivia and the old man, had returned and stood between them, waiting to hear what was to be done with all that remained of him on this earth. It was one of those silences which, descending upon the old house, sometimes filled Olivia with a vague uneasiness. They had a way of descending upon the household in the long evenings when all the family sat reading in the old drawing-room—as if there were figures unseen who stood watching.

"If he wanted to be buried here," said Olivia, "I can see no reason why he should not be."

"Cassie will object to raking up an old scandal that has been forgotten."

"Surely that can't matter now . . . when the poor old man is dead. We can be kind to him now . . . surely we can be kind to him now."

John Pentland sighed abruptly, a curious, heart-breaking sigh that seemed to have escaped even his power of steely control; and presently he said, "I think you are right, Olivia.