nd was engrossed
with other things, and the principal significance it attached to the
passing of a human life at such close quarters was the hope it held out
that the parlour might remain vacant.

"Were you afraid to look," the mother asked Keith on her return with the
father from the cemetery.

"No, I just didn't want to," the boy replied emphatically.

"Why," the mother asked, studying his face with the peculiar searching
glance that sometimes provoked him and sometimes filled him with a
desire to bury his head in her lap and weep.

"Why should I," Keith rejoined. "He was dead!"

VI

No sooner had the apologetic young man removed the effects of his
departed relative than Keith wanted to take full possession of the
parlour. His mother checked his eagerness with the explanation that they
might still want to rent it. In the meantime he could use it freely, but
he must remove all his playthings when he was through for the day.

"Why can't I sleep on the big sofa in there," he asked in a tone that he
vainly tried to make ingratiating.

"Not yet," said his mother evasively. "You had better stay in here, I
think."

Once more the sense of being watched took hold of him unpleasantly,
filling him with a mixture of fear and resentment. And his wonder why
they seemed to suspect him added to the mystery with which his mind was
wrestling so hopelessly.

The constant access to the parlour was a great change for the better,
however, and one of the first uses he made of it was to investigate his
father's little library with a thoroughness that until then had been out
of the question. It was a queer collection, embracing every form of
literature from philosophy to fiction. This catholicity did not mirror
the father's taste but resulted from his manner of acquiring the books.
Before obtaining the position he now held in the bank, he worked for a
while in the office of one of the principal book printing establishments
at Stockholm. There he formed acquaintances which later enabled him to
get one unbound set of sheets of every book issued from that press.
These he sent to a binder who put them into simple paper covers for a
few _oere_ per volume. They always arrived in a large package just before
Christmas, and one of the thorns in Keith's flesh was the care with
which his father kept all those new treasures hidden until the holiday
season was past. Then the books that had not been handed on to friends
or relations as Chr