ied and
there was a heap of money just beyond my mother's grasp. My father had
become a stumbling-block in her path--in my path. He it was who kept us
from enjoying wealth.

The cruelty of my grandfather in arranging such a situation filled me
with anger when I contemplated it. What could my father think but that,
if he were out of the way, it would be far, far better for his wife and
child?

I could not believe, for an instant, that Dr. Webb would have committed
the crime of self-destruction. But in my then romantic state of mind,
what more easily believed than that he had deliberately removed himself
out of our lives--and in a way to make it appear that he was dead?

As we did, he knew we would at once enter into the enjoyment of the
wealth left by old Mr. Darringford. There would be no material suffering
caused by his dropping out of sight. I faced the matter with more
coolness and a better understanding than most boys of my age possess,
because of my knowing my mother's nature so well. Take my own sudden
disappearance, for instance. I knew well she would be quite overwhelmed
at first; but if good Dr. Eldridge brought her out of it all right, and
she had somebody to turn to and depend upon for comfort and
encouragement, she would sustain my mysterious absence very well indeed.

And my father must have known her character much better than I did!
Undoubtedly it had been very hard for mother to endure the cramped
circumstances of those first two years of her married life. It must have
been a great deal harder for Dr. Webb to bear it, knowing that she
suffered for lack of the luxuries and ease to which she had been used.

I could imagine that the situation when my grandfather died and left his
peculiar will, would have pretty near maddened Dr. Webb. It would not be
strange if he contemplated self-destruction as a means of putting my
mother and myself positively beyond the reach of poverty. He had rowed
out to White Rock. He had left the old watch--I had the heirloom in my
pocket now--for the boy who was yet to grow up and bear his name. The
fog and the Sally Smith had appeared together and offered him means of
escape.

It would be fifteen years the coming spring that my father had
disappeared. Tom Anderly had hit the time near enough. Had there been
any man named Carver who had suffered such an accident off Bolderhead
Neck as the old seaman told of, I would have heard the particulars,
knocking about among the Bold