The big chair by the window was vacant, and it created a void which Robert Fairchild could neither combat nor overcome.
What had been the past?
Why the silence?
Why the patient, yet impatient wait for death?
The son did not know.

In all his memories was only one faint picture, painted years before in babyhood: the return of his father from some place, he knew not where, a long conference with his mother behind closed doors, while he, in childlike curiosity, waited without, seeking in vain to catch some explanation.
Then a sad-faced woman who cried at night when the house was still, who faded and who died.

That was all.

The picture carried no explanation.
And now Robert Fairchild stood on the threshold of something he almost feared to learn.

Once, on a black, stormy night, they had sat together, father and son before the fire, silent for hours.