'More than that,' answered Emily. 'He was in Mexico, the last we knew.'
'He may be living,' suggested John. 'Mexico is always in such a state—I suppose the mails can't be trusted.'
'We ought to find out,' said Alice.
'Uncle John had cast him off,' suggested Emily tentatively, anxiously.
'But he was Uncle John's own son,' said Alice, earnestly, compellingly; 'and wasn't Uncle John in the wrong?'
'Uncle John was a queer customer,' said John hastily. 'He was cranky, no doubt about it, but he wasn't crazy; and if this lawyer's statement is correct, I've got a good legal right to the twenty thousand, haven't I?'
'Of course you have!' said Aunt Mary.
'But the moral right?' whispered Alice.
'What was the quarrel about, anyway?' asked Austin. 'Frank's marriage, wasn't it? I never heard much about it.'
'That was part of it,' said Aunt Janet. 'Frank, you know, fell in love with a little country girl whom his father did not want him to marry, but he insisted on having his way, and married her.'