-it's got the postmark on the outside."

Clark pointed with his mortar-coated thumb to the faint circle of the
stamp in the corner. Adelle took the letter from him with a sense of
faintness that she could not explain. She had been right in her
conjecture: that seemed to her a very great point.

"I was bringin' 'em up to the house last night," the mason explained,
"but seen you had company, so kep' 'em until to-day."

So he had not thought of going to San Francisco on a spree! Adelle's
woman conceit might have been sadly dashed.

"May I read them?" she asked, looking curiously at the package of faded
letters.

"Sure! Read 'em over. That's what I brought 'em to you for," the mason
said heartily. "I couldn't make much out of the old writing myself. I
ain't no scholar, you know, and the ink is pretty thin in spots. But I
seed the Alton postmark and thought you would be interested."

"I'll look them over," Adelle said slowly, "and let you know what I find
in them."

She carried the letters with her back to her rooms, but she did not open
them at once. She had no desire to do so, now that she had them. It was
not until the afternoon, while she was lounging in her room,--Archie
having gone to play polo at the club,--that she finally took up the
stained packet of old letters, and opened them. They were addressed
variously to "E. S. Clark," or "Edward S. Clark," and one to "E. Stanley
Clark," but that was a later one than the others and had to do with some
land business in California. The mason had spoken of his grandfather as
"Stanley Clark"--"old Stan Clark," he called him. Evidently the elder
Clark had called himself by his middle name after settling in
California, but before that he had been known as "Edward" or "Edward S.
Clark."

Almost at random Adelle opened a letter--the one that the mason had
pointed out to her as having the Alton postmark. It was written in a
scrawly, heavy hand, which was almost illegibly faint and yellow after
the lapse of more than fifty years, and must have been written by one
little accustomed to the pen, for there was much hard spelling as well
as irregular chirography. Adelle looked for the signature. It was in the
lower inside corner, and the name, in the effort to economize space, was
almost unreadable. It might be "Sam." After considerable puzzlement, she
felt sure that it was "Sam." The S had an indubitable corkscrew effect,
and the straight splotches must have been an _m_, and the