HE had intended, earlier in the day, to seek Mrs. Wain again as soon as possible and beg her for more information of his mother; but he realized, later, that now that he knew his mother was Mrs. Oliver Cullen, a great deal of news about her awaited him without asking any one's indulgence. So Barney went from the hospital to the public library where he obtained the newspaper files for September which reported the loss of the Gallantic with Mrs. Oliver Cullen, and which detailed, in long columns, the many interests and activities of her vigorous life.
There were several pictures of her which Barney had not previously seen, reproductions of photographs taken at important social and civic ceremonies. The biographical sketch began with the year when she came to Chicago "from nowhere" and obtained her first position in the office on Wabash Avenue; it related how she went to the Cullen offices and was dismissed; how Oliver Cullen had fallen in love with her and married her; it mentioned discreetly the fact of the Cullen family estrangement, the struggle for the possession of power; the swift and spectacular rise of the Oliver Cullen fortunes following his marriage; the assumption of the control of the family by his wife; her war work and then the circumstances of her sudden "death."
There was some mention of her in the newspapers for
