"We can trip ourselves up at almost every turn, Mary. Aren't places really big or small as we ticket them in our own minds? If you think of Miller's Notch and Kettle by figures of the census, they are small—but, maybe, reckoning them from real angles they're big—very big, and it's our cities that are small. To go back to Jerry—when I think of her I always think of something I said to Barbara Lee—that nothing on earth could chain a spirit like that anywhere—she was one of the world's crusaders. Oh—youth! If nothing spoils my Jerry, she'll always go forward with her head up! But that's what has made me worry, more than once, during my "experiment." Have we risked the girl to the danger of being spoiled? Will our little superficialities, so ingrained that we don't realize them, taint her splendid unaffectedness? I don't know—I can't tell until I see her back at Kettle—in that environment the like of which I've never found anywhere else. If she isn't the same shining-eyed Jerry plus considerable wisdom gleaned from her books and her school friends, I'll have it on my conscience—if she's the same, well, the winter's been worth a great deal to all of us! When I see her and watch her back there—I'll know. And that leads me to what I really came here to tell you." John Westley drew a letter from his pocket. "I had word from Trimmer—the Boston attorney. He's found traces of a Craig Winton who was a graduate of Boston Tech. He lived in obscure lodgings in a poorer part of Boston and yet he seemed to have quite a circle of friends of an intellectual sort. Some of them have given enough facts to be pieced together so as to prove, I think conclusively, that this chap is the one we're looking for. He was an inventor and of a very brilliant turn of mind, but unpractical—the old story—and desperately poor. He married the only daughter of a chemist who lived in Cambridge. His health broke down and he took his wife and went off to the country somewhere—his Boston friends lost track of him after that. Later one received a letter telling of the birth of a son."
"How interesting! Robert will be home in two weeks and then we can make the settlement."
"But, Mary—the search hasn't ended. He left Boston for the 'country'—that is very vague. And I don't like the tone of Trimmer's communication. He advises dropping the whole matter. He says that sufficient effort has been made to meet the spirit of the letter left by the late Peter Westley——"
"You will not drop it, will you?"
"Indeed not. I wired him to put all the men he could find on the case. And I am going to do some work on my own account."
"You?"
"Yes—I have a clue all of my own." He laughed, folding the letter and putting it away.
"Really, John?"
"Yes—a foolish sort of a clue—I can scarcely tell it to a man like Trimmer. It's only a pair of eyes——"
"I suppose if you're like all other sleuths you will not tell me anything more," said Mrs. Westley, wondering if he was really in earnest. "When and where will your personal search begin?"