keep all conversation along natural lines and do no probing.
And now,--this brother whom all had thought dead, come to life with
menace in his acts and conversation! Also a sister,--but this sister he
had no belief in. The coincidence was too startlingly out of nature for
him to accept a brother and a sister too. A brother or a sister; but not
both. Not even Mr. Harper's assurances should influence his credulity to
this extent. "Money! money is at the bottom of it all," was his final
decision. "She knows it and is making her will, as a possible protection.
But why come here?"

Thus every reflection ended.

Suddenly a vanished, half-forgotten memory came back. It brought a gleam
of light into the darkness which had hitherto enveloped the whole matter.
She had once spoken to him of her early life. She had mentioned a place
where she used to play as a child; had mentioned it lovingly, longingly.
There were hills, she had said; hills all around. And woods full of
chestnut-trees, safe woods where she could wander at will. And the
roads--how she loved to walk the roads. No automobiles then, not even
bicycles. One could go miles without meeting man or horse. Sometimes a
heavily-laden cart would go by drawn by a long string of oxen; but they
were picturesque and added to the charm. Oxen were necessary where there
was no railroad.

As he repeated these words to himself, he looked up. Through the downpour
his eyes could catch a glimpse of the road before him, winding up a long
hillside. Down this road was approaching a dozen yoke of oxen dragging a
wagon piled with bales of some sort of merchandise. One question in his
mind was answered. This spot was not an unknown one to her. It was
connected with her childhood days. There was reason back of her choice
of it as a place of meeting between her and her lawyer, or if not reason,
association, and that of the tenderest kind. He felt himself relieved of
the extreme weight of his oppression and ventured upon asking a question
or two about Sitford, which he took pains to say he was visiting for the
first time.

The information he obtained was but meager, but he did learn that there
was a very fair tavern there and that the manufactures of the place were
sufficient to account for a stranger's visit. The articles made were
mostly novelties.

This knowledge he meant to turn to account, but changed his mind when
they finally splashed into town and stopped before the tavern which had