seem to feel of my continued respect for his memory, have
opened a new view to me. Mr. Vanstone has died a ruined man--is that
what you had to tell me?"

"Far from it. Mr. Vanstone has died, leaving a fortune of more than
eighty thousand pounds--a fortune invested in excellent securities. He
lived up to his income, but never beyond it; and all his debts added
together would not reach two hundred pounds. If he had died a ruined
man, I should have felt deeply for his children: but I should not have
hesitated to tell you the truth, as I am hesitating now. Let me repeat
a question which escaped you, I think, when I first put it. Carry your
mind back to the spring of this year. Do you remember the fourth of
March?"

Miss Garth shook her head. "My memory for dates is bad at the best of
times," she said. "I am too confused to exert it at a moment's notice.
Can you put your question in no other form?"

He put it in this form:

"Do you remember any domestic event in the spring of the present year
which appeared to affect Mr. Vanstone more seriously than usual?"

Miss Garth leaned forward in her chair, and looked eagerly at Mr.
Pendril across the table. "The journey to London!" she exclaimed. "I
distrusted the journey to London from the first! Yes! I remember Mr.
Vanstone receiving a letter--I remember his reading it, and looking so
altered from himself that he startled us all."

"Did you notice any apparent understanding between Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone
on the subject of that letter?"

"Yes: I did. One of the girls--it was Magdalen--mentioned the post-mark;
some place in America. It all comes back to me, Mr. Pendril. Mrs.
Vanstone looked excited and anxious, the moment she heard the place
named. They went to London together the next day; they explained nothing
to their daughters, nothing to me. Mrs. Vanstone said the journey was
for family affairs. I suspected something wrong; I couldn't tell what.
Mrs. Vanstone wrote to me from London, saying that her object was to
consult a physician on the state of her health, and not to alarm her
daughters by telling them. Something in the letter rather hurt me at the
time. I thought there might be some other motive that she was keeping
from me. Did I do her wrong?"

"You did her no wrong. There was a motive which she was keeping from
you. In revealing that motive, I reveal the painful secret which brings
me to this house. All that I could do to prepare you, I have done. Let
me now te