cle uneasily. "The estate is just about
as involved and mixed-up as an estate can well get, to the best of my
knowledge; and I haven't helped it any by what he let me have for this
infernal headlight scheme which has finally gone trolloping forever to
where the woodbine twineth. Leaves me flat, and poor old Frank Bronson
just half flat, and Fanny--well, thank heaven! I kept her from going
in so deep that it would leave her flat. It's rough on her as it is, I
suspect. You ought to have that deed."

"No. Don't bother him."

"I'll bother him as little as possible. I'll wait till some day when he
seems to brighten up a little."

But Amberson waited too long. The Major had already taken eleven months
since his daughter's death to think important things out. He had got as
far with them as he could, and there was nothing to detain him longer
in the world. One evening his grandson sat with him--the Major seemed
to like best to have young George with him, so far as they were able to
guess his preferences--and the old gentleman made a queer gesture:
he slapped his knee as if he had made a sudden discovery, or else
remembered that he had forgotten something.

George looked at him with an air of inquiry, but said nothing. He had
grown to be almost as silent as his grandfather. However, the Major
spoke without being questioned.

"It must be in the sun," he said. "There wasn't anything here but the
sun in the first place, and the earth came out of the sun, and we came
out of the earth. So, whatever we are, we must have been in the sun. We
go back to the earth we came out of, so the earth will go back to the
sun that it came out of. And time means nothing--nothing at all--so in a
little while we'll all be back in the sun together. I wish--"

He moved his hand uncertainly as if reaching for something, and George
jumped up. "Did you want anything, grandfather?"

"What?"

"Would you like a glass of water?"

"No--no. No; I don't want anything." The reaching hand dropped back upon
the arm of his chair, and he relapsed into silence; but a few minutes
later he finished the sentence he had begun:

"I wish--somebody could tell me!"

The next day he had a slight cold, but he seemed annoyed when his son
suggested calling the doctor, and Amberson let him have his own way
so far, in fact, that after he had got up and dressed, the following
morning, he was all alone when he went away to find out what he hadn't
been able to think out--