"You think he never wrote?"
"Oh, I am sure not. He mourned about it, every now and then, to the very last."
"Was my grandfather a bachelor when he came here?"
"Of course, and quite an old bachelor, too. I think he was about thirty when he married your grandmother in 1794."
"She was a Lomax—Margaret Lomax, I believe?'
"Yes; that's how we come to be akin to all the Lomax connection."
"Just so. You are sure he had never married before?"
"Sure? Why, yes, certainly. How could he? Why, Hesden, what do you mean? Why do you ask all these questions? You do not—you cannot—Oh, Hesden!" she exclaimed, leaning forward and trembling with apprehension.
"Be calm, mother. I am not asking these questions without good cause," he answered, very gravely.
After a moment, when she had recovered herself a little, he continued, holding toward her a slip of paper, as he asked: