bout the bush in his own thoughts, to find some indirect or
sinuous way of getting at what he wanted to know, and that it was only
because he failed that he asked bluntly, "March, do you know where my
daughter is?"

"No, Tedham, I don't," I said, and I was glad that I could say it both
with honesty and with compassion. I was truly sorry for the man; in a
way, I did pity him; at the same time I did not wish to be mixed up in
his affairs; in washing my hands of them, I preferred that there should
be no stain of falsehood left on them.

"Where is my sister-in-law?" he asked next, and now at least I could not
censure him for indirection.

"I haven't met her for several years," I answered. "I couldn't say from
my own knowledge where she was."

"But you haven't heard of her leaving Somerville?"

"No, I haven't."

"Do you ever meet her husband?"

"Yes, sometimes, on the street; but I think not lately; we don't often
meet."

"The last time you saw _her_, did she speak of me?"

"I don't know--I believe--yes. It was a good many years ago."

"Was she changed toward me at all?"

This was a hard question to answer, but I thought I had better answer it
with the exact truth. "No, she seemed to feel just the same as ever
about it."

I do not believe Tedham cared for this, after all, though he made a show
of having to collect himself before he went on. "Then you think my
daughter is with her?"

"I didn't say that. I don't know anything about it."

"March," he urged, "don't _you_ think I have a right to see my
daughter?"

"That's something I can't enter into, Tedham."

"Good God!" said the man. "If you were in my place, wouldn't you want to
see her? You know how fond I used to be of her; and she is all that I
have got left in the world."

I did indeed remember Tedham's affection for his daughter, whom I
remembered as in short frocks when I last saw them together. It was
before my own door in town. Tedham had driven up in a smart buggy behind
a slim sorrel, and I came out, at a sign he made me through the
bow-window with his whip, and saw the little maid on the seat there
beside him. They were both very well dressed, though still in mourning
for the child's mother, and the whole turnout was handsomely set up.
Tedham was then about thirty-five, and the child looked about nine. The
color of her hair was the color of his fine brown beard, which had as
yet no trace of gray in it; but the light in her eyes was another li