him most vividly as she had seen him last, that stormy
afternoon when he had wandered beside the lake, carrying his coat until
she made him put it on, she recalled this silk cloth, or one just like
it, in his coat pocket; she had taken it from his pocket and put it
around his neck.

She started with trembling fingers to take it from the box; then,
realizing from the weight of the package that the cloth was only a
wrapping or, at least, that other things were in the box, she hesitated
and looked around for her mother. But her mother had gone out; her
father and Henry both were in Chicago; she was alone in the big summer
"cottage," except for servants. Constance picked up box and wrapping
and ran up to her room. She locked the door and put the box upon the
bed; now she lifted out the cloth. It was a wrapping, for the heavier
things came with it; and now, also, it revealed itself plainly as the
scarf--Uncle Benny's scarf! A paper fluttered out as she began to
unroll it--a little cross-lined leaf evidently torn from a pocket
memorandum book. It had been folded and rolled up. She spread it out;
writing was upon it, the small irregular letters of Uncle Benny's hand.

"Send to Alan Conrad," she read; there followed a Chicago address--the
number of Uncle Benny's house on Astor Street. Below this was another
line:

"Better care of Constance Sherrill (Miss)." There followed the
Sherrills' address upon the Drive. And to this was another correction:

"Not after June 12th; then to Harbor Springs, Mich. Ask some one of
that; be sure the date; after June 12th."

Constance, trembling, unrolled the scarf; now coins showed from a fold,
next a pocket knife, ruined and rusty, next a watch--a man's large gold
watch with the case queerly pitted and worn completely through in
places, and last a plain little band of gold of the size for a woman's
finger--a wedding ring. Constance, gasping and with fingers shaking so
from excitement that she could scarcely hold these objects, picked them
up and examined them--the ring first.

It very evidently was, as she had immediately thought, a wedding ring
once fitted for a finger only a trifle less slender than her own. One
side of the gold band was very much worn, not with the sort of wear
which a ring gets on a hand, but by some different sort of abrasion.
The other side of the band was roughened and pitted but not so much
worn; the inside still bore the traces of an inscription. "A