arried to Abner's father, but that she had
been entrapped into a form of marriage with John Logan at a time when
he had a wife still living.

"By the heavens above, this is the strangest affair that ever came
within my ken!" said James Drane after reading Gaines' letter. "Why, I
verily believe that the dainty schoolmaster is a bastard; and, what is
more, that he has no claim to the Hite fortune. He certainly has not,
if my surmises concerning that half-forgotten episode of that hamlet in
the Cumberland Mountains be correct."

The episode to which he referred was this. He, when a boy of ten, had
once accompanied his father on a visit into southwestern Virginia. On
the third day of their journey night had overtaken them near Centerton,
a little settlement of five or six cabins in the Cumberland Mountains.
They had stopped for shelter at one of these cabins, owned by a family
named Wheeler. The next morning there was a terrible rain storm which
had detained the travelers in the village until the following day.
While there James had seen a neglected grave marked by a wooden slab,
on the mountain-side, just back of the Wheelers' cabin. He was filled
with boyish curiosity concerning this lonely grave, and had asked its
history.

Several years before, so Mrs. Wheeler had told him, some emigrants on
their way into Kentucky had stopped at the Wheeler cabin. The wife of
one of these emigrants had been bitten or stung on the cheek by some
poisonous reptile while the party was camping in the mountains the
night before. The poor woman was suffering horribly when they reached
the Wheelers', and she died there the next day from the effects of the
venomous wound in her face. They buried her under the trees back of the
cabin, and her husband cut her name, age and the date of her death upon
that oak slab, and placed it as a headstone to mark the last
resting-place of his wife. He and the other emigrants then continued on
their journey.

This sad story and the lonely grave on the mountainside had made a deep
impression upon the lad, James Drane. He now recalled the story, and he
was sure that the name upon that slab was Mary Page. Moreover, he
believed that the date recorded on the wooden slab was that of a day of
the spring of 1782. After much reflection, Drane decided to tell Major
Gilcrest of these discoveries and surmises.

To say that Hiram Gilcrest was amazed at the story which the lawyer
related would but feebly express his s