s a two-dollar bill and
a line saying it was for the coat."

"And it had been there waiting for you for some time?"

"'Twas as yellow as saffron. They didn't know where I lived when I was
to home. And I had been 'round the world in the Scarboro, too."

"And the letter was from Bolderhead?" I asked, slowly.

"No. That was the funny part of it," said Tom.

I awoke again and once more felt a thrill of excitement in my veins. I
watched the old fellow jealously.

"Didn't the man--this Carver--belong in Bolderhead?"

"So I supposed. But the letter come from foreign parts."

"Where?" I asked.

"'Twas from Santiago, Chili."

"Then he had not gone back to Bolderhead?" I stammered.

"Bless ye, lad! how do I know? I only know he sent the money from Chili.
He was something of a mystery, that feller, I allow. Ever heard tell of
him in Bolderhead? Are there any Carvers there?"

"It's a mighty small town along the New England coast in which there are
no Carvers," I replied.

"Now, ain't that a fact? They're a spraddled out family, I do allow,"
said Tom.

"What did this man look like?" I asked, and I was still eager--I could
scarcely have told why.

There was an enlarged crayon picture of my father in my bedroom at home.
When he died my mother only had a cheap little tintype of him. I don't
suppose the crayon portrait looked much like Dr. Webb. Certainly there
was little in Tom Anderly's description to connect the strange man
rescued out of the sea with the portrait of my father. Yet the
circumstances, the time of the happening, and the suspicions that had
been roused in my mind by Paul Downes and his father, all dovetailed
together and troubled me.

Even Ham Mayberry, who scoffed at the idea that my father had made way
with himself, admitted that had Dr. Webb lived my mother and I could
never have enjoyed Grandfather Darringford's money. I could never
believe that my father had been wicked enough to commit suicide. But,
suppose he had merely slipped away from us--gone out of our lives
entirely--with the intention of putting his wife and child in a
prosperous position?

It was romantic, I suppose. To the perfectly sane and hard-headed such a
suspicion would seem utterly ridiculous. But the longer I thought over
Tom Anderly's story--the more I allowed my imagination to roam--the more
possible the idea seemed. Ham had said my father was not a money-making
man. He was in financial difficulties, too. Grandfather had d