with another jerky motion, which seemed to propel him against his will,
crossed to his desk and touched a bell, bringing his secretary
instantly.

"Left hand side of the vault, box marked 'Private 3,'" he said. Then he
resumed:

"If they could come back they would come, Bulger. Especially those we
loved. Not to let us see them, you understand, but to assure us it is
all right--that we'll live again. That's what I want--proof--I can't
take it on faith." His voice lowered. "Thirty years!" he whispered.
"What's thirty years?"

The secretary knocked, entered, set a small, steel box on the glass top
of the desk. Norcross dismissed him with a gesture, drew out his keys,
opened the box. It distilled a faint scent of old roses and old papers.
Norcross looked within for a moment, as though turning the scent into
memories, before he took out a locket. He opened it, hesitated, and
then extended it to Bulger. It enclosed an exquisite miniature--a young
woman, blonde, pretty in a blue-eyed, innocent way, but characterless,
too--a face upon which life had left nothing, so that even the great
painter who made the miniature from a photograph had illuminated it
only with technical skill.

"Don't tell me what you think of her," Norcross said quietly; "I prefer
to keep my own ideas. It was when I was a young freight clerk. She
taught school up there. We were--well, the ring's in the box, too. They
took it off her finger when they buried her. That's why--" to put the
brake on his rapidly running sentiment, he ventured one of his rare
pleasantries at this point--"that's why I'm still a stock newspaper