ut myself, however, but about you. Do you
remember the one and only occasion on which you allowed me to see
something of the real man beneath the outer shell of the genial manager
of the A1 S. and T. Co.? Pardon me if I hurt your feelings by alluding
to a painful subject, but I have my reasons, as you will see later. On
that occasion I remember that I, like a blundering fool, got on to the
subject of my return home to my wife and child, and I began telling you
of my Maud--her sweet ways, her looks, her cleverness, and all that. You
had confessed to feeling a bit 'under the weather' that day, and I said,
'Why don't you take a holiday and pay a visit to the old country with
me?' 'The old country!' you said. 'Why, man, I haven't seen it for
fifteen years. It has no attractions for me now. If I had a child
living, I would be a different man.' And there was such a world of
sadness in your tone that I'm blest if I didn't have to get up and look
out of the window. Then you told me how your wife had died, back in the
old country, and how all your hopes had died with her; and from the way
you spoke I guessed that you were not in the habit of telling your
story, and I felt honoured by your confidence. Then you showed me a
locket with a picture of your wife inside it, and attached to the locket
was the half of a coin. 'We split this for luck when we were young and
foolish,' you said, and your laugh was one of the most heartbreaking
sounds I ever heard in my life. Well now, having got to my point at
last, it is my firm belief that you have a child living, and by all
accounts as sweet a little maiden as the heart of man could wish, and
the discovery came about in a very simple way.

"Some two years ago my brother took a place in Scotland, at Heathermuir,
near Morristown. While I was on my travels my wife and daughter went up
there to visit them twice, and Maud made the acquaintance of a girl
named Marjory Davidson. She goes by the nickname of 'Hunter's
Marjory'--I suppose, because she lives with an old uncle at his place
called Hunters' Brae. I did not pay much attention to Maud's chatter,
for it was a great mixture of shut-up rooms, ghosts, old houses, oak
chests, boating, drowning, and all the rest of it. Of course I never
for one moment connected this child with you in any way--that is, not
until yesterday. There had been some talk about summer holiday plans,
and wonderings as to what my brother was going to do, for there had been