"Thank you. Mr. Winslow, for the past two years or more I have been in great trouble. I have a brother—but you knew that; Babbie told you."
"Um-hm. The one she calls 'Uncle Charlie'?"
"Yes. He is—he is serving his sentence in the Connecticut State Prison."
Jed leaned back upon the box. His head struck smartly against the edge of the bandsaw bench, but he did not seem to be aware of the fact.
"My Lord above!" he gasped.
"Yes, it is true. Surely you must have guessed something of that sort, after Babbie's story of the policemen."
"I—I—well, I did sort of—of presume likely he must have got into some sort of—of difficulty, but I never thought 'twas bad as that. . . . Dear me! . . . Dear me!"
"My brother is younger than I; he is scarcely twenty-three years old. He and I are orphans. Our home was in Wisconsin. Father was killed in a railway accident and Mother and my brother Charles and I were left with very little money. We were in a university town and Mother took a few students as lodgers. Doctor Armstrong was one; I met him there, and before he left the medical college we were engaged to be married. Charlie was only a boy then, of course. Mother died three years later. Meanwhile Seymour—Doctor Armstrong—had located in Middleford, Connecticut, and was practicing medicine there. He came on, we were married, and I returned to Middleford with him. We had been married but a few years when he died—of pneumonia. That was the year after Babbie was born. Charles remained in Wisconsin, boarding with a cousin of Mother's, and, after he graduated from high school, entered one of the banks in the town. He was very successful there and the bank people liked him. After Seymour—my husband—died, he came East to see me at Middleford. One of Doctor Armstrong's patients, a bond broker in New Haven, took a fancy to him, or we thought he did, and offered him a position. He accepted, gave up his place at the bank in Wisconsin, and took charge of this man's Middleford office, making his home with Babbie and me. He was young, too young I think now, to have such a responsible position, but every one said he had a remarkably keen business mind and that his future was certain to be brilliant. And then—"
She paused. It was evident that the hard part of her story was coming. After a moment she went on.
"Charlie was popular with the young people there in Middleford. He was always a favorite, at home, at school, everywhere. Mother idolized him while she lived, so did I, so did Babbie. He was fond of society and the set he was friendly with was made up, for the most part, of older men with much more money than he. He was proud, he would not accept favors without repaying them, he liked a good time, perhaps he was a little fast; not dissipated—I should have known if he were that—but—careless—and what you men call a 'good fellow.' At any rate, he—"