What were my thoughts after all?
Was I ashamed of my kinship with Zoe?
With this human being who had nursed me so tenderly through my illness?
Did I begrudge her the interest which she had, of right, with me in our father's estate?
She was as closely connected to him by ties of blood as I was.

These things I reflected upon as I felt course through me a deep undercurrent of regret.
Was it my mother?
Her face came before me as I had learned to know it from her picture.

Yes, that seemed to be it.

My mother had not been honored.

How could my father for any ambition, for any exigency of circumstance stoop to a marriage of this sort, with the memory of my mother still fresh in mind, if not in heart?
Ah! that was it! Did he keep her in his heart?
My grandmother's reticence about my father began to fill in with significance of this sort.