"You think that this young man's story is true then?"
"I don't know what to think, and that's the truth."
"Tell me more," added Louisa simply.
"Well, this Philip's story goes on to say that his father—Uncle Arthur—apparently soon tired of his exotic wife, for it seems that two years after the marriage he left Martinique and never returned to it to the day of his death."
"Pardon," said Louisa in her prim little way, "my interrupting you: but have any of you—Lord Radclyffe I mean, or any of your friends—any recollection of your uncle Arthur living at Martinique for awhile? Two years seems a long time——"
"As a matter of fact, Uncle Arthur was a bit of a wastrel you know. He never would study for anything. He passed into the navy—very well, too, I believe—but he threw it all up almost as soon as he got his commission, and started roaming about the world. I do know for a fact that once his people had no news of him for about three or four years, and then he turned up one fine day as if he had only been absent for a week's shooting."
"When was that?"
"I can't tell you exactly. I was only a tiny kid at the time, not more than three years old I should say. Yes, I do remember, now I come to think of it, that Uncle Arthur was home the Christmas after my third birthday. I have a distinct recollection of my dad telling me that Uncle Arthur was one of my presents from Father Christmas, and of my thinking what a rotten present it was. Later on in the nursery all of us children were rather frightened of him, and we used to have great discussions as to where this uncle came from. The Christmas present theory was soon exploded, because of some difficulty about Uncle Arthur not having been actually found in a stocking, and his being too big anyway to be hidden in one, so we fell back on Jim's suggestion that he was the man in the moon come down for a holiday."
"You," she said, "had your third birthday in 1883."
"Yes."