He went up to his wife's room, the room in which he had deposited all the mementoes of her silent life which he had brought home with him. Her jewels were there, her desk, and an old trunk which from sentiment she had preserved from the days of her maidenhood. In her desk he found a bunch of keys, and one of these fitted the trunk, which now lay open before him. He had never before looked into this trunk, and he could not have told what he expected to find there; but what he saw now stood witness against him. From the grave in a foreign land came the accusation.
Nothing of his dead wife's was in the trunk, nothing that she had worn or that he had given her. Everything it contained had belonged to Kingsley. Portraits, school-books, articles of dress, and many items insignificant and worthless in themselves, but deeply precious in their spiritual significance. Here was the mother's heart portrayed, here the record of her inner life and sufferings, to which she had never given utterance. All the more potent now in their silent testimony. The proud man read in these trifles his condemnation. With a little quivering of his mouth, which he made no effort to control, he closed the trunk and locked it, and left the room, treading softly.
In the passage he lingered a few moments, wrestling with an inward urging to visit the room which Kingsley used to occupy, and which was situated on the floor above. With something of his old masterfulness he wheeled suddenly round, and returned to his own apartment. There, however, the desire manifested itself more strongly, and yielding to it he soon found himself in Kingsley's room, which he had not visited since the day on which he had conducted Nansie thither, with the endeavor to impress upon her the great sacrifice which she would force Kingsley to make if she did not herself take steps to separate from him. Here, again, Mr. Manners was confronted with accusing testimony, for, from surrounding evidence, he saw that his wife had been in the habit of sitting in this room, and frequently occupying it after their son's departure. These signs of suppressed suffering, of anguish borne in silence, could not fail to impress him; nor could he fail to be impressed by the once familiar objects in which Kingsley took pride. The books, the bed, the articles of taste and value, the pipes, even some bits of jewelry--it seemed as if nothing had been removed or disturbed. Mr. Manners was both surprised and touched; these things were Kingsley's own, and he might have taken them and converted them into money, which the father knew had been sadly needed. "Kingsley was never mercenary," thought Mr. Manners, with a pitiful smile of mingled pride and humiliation. "The soul of honor and generosity!"