u know about this
man?" Mrs. Pennington looked from her niece to her husband. "Margaret
Elizabeth seems to have completely won you to her side," she added.

"It is really a very strange story, Eleanor, and to begin at the end of
it, we have quite sufficient evidence, in my opinion, to prove that he
is the son of my old comrade, Robert Waite."

Mrs. Pennington fixed surprised eyes upon her husband. Margaret
Elizabeth sat down and folded her hands in her lap.

"You recall how Rob disappeared, without a word to any of his friends?
It was not till some years after the general's death that I had the
least clue to it; then William Knight came to me to know if I could
give any help in tracing him. He owned that there had been some trouble
between General Waite and Robert, and that the latter had been unjustly
treated. I couldn't give him any assistance, and I never discussed it
with him again. Knight was always close-mouthed, and it was only the
other day that I learned what the trouble was. It seems the general
suspected his nephew of taking a large sum of money from the safe in his
library. It was one of those cases of complete circumstantial evidence.
Rob was known to have lost money on the races. He was the only one
beside the general himself who had access to the safe, and who knew that
this money, several thousand dollars, was there at this time. That is,
so it was supposed.

"Knowing them both, one can easily understand the outcome. Robert
disappeared, and a few years later, when the general died, he left his
fortune to William Knight, his wife's nephew. Then after some little
time the real thief turned up. I won't go into that, further than to
say that it was through a deathbed confession to a priest. Since then
Knight has been searching far and wide for some trace of Robert, only
to receive last week the evidence of his death twenty-five years ago.
And now comes the strange part of the story. The very day on which
he received this news, Knight came by chance upon a book which he
recognised as once the property of Robert Waite. The owner's name was
cut from the fly leaf, but below it was written the name of a young
man whose acquaintance he had made last winter, Robert Deane Reynolds.
Deane was Rob's middle name, so naturally it led to an investigation."

Mr. Pennington looked over at Margaret Elizabeth. "Have I told a
straight story?" he asked.

"There were letters, you know," she prompted.

"Oh, yes. This you