The old man scanned his features eagerly, and a sudden look of remembrance satisfied the latter that he was not forgotten.
"I see you do remember me," he said; "I thought you hadn't forgotten John Randall. At any rate he hasn't forgotten you, though twenty years have passed, and I was then but a young man. I used to see you too often about the streets of Havana not to remember that hooked nose, those gray eyes, and (excuse my plainness of speech) that large mouth. Yes, Peter, your features are impressed upon my memory too indelibly to be effaced."
Peter Manson remembered his companion as one who had had the reputation of being a "wild" young man. He had been placed at school by his father without any profitable result. On his father's death he squandered, in dissipation, the property which came to him, and had since devoted himself to the sea.
"Having settled this little matter of your identity," continued Randall, "I am ready to finish my story. I told you that Eleanor married the young man whose name you remembered so well. He was poor, dependent upon his salary as a clerk, and thanks to you his wife had nothing to hope from her father. They were obliged to live in a very humble way. At length, thinking he could do better here, he removed to Boston, where his early life had been spent."
"To Boston!" muttered Peter.
"The removal took place some six years since. They had three children when they first came here, but two died, leaving only the second, a boy, named Charlie. I should think he might be fourteen years of age. And now, would you like to know if the husband is still living?"
"Is he?" asked Peter, looking up.
"No. He died about a year since, of a fever."
"And—and Eleanor? What of her?"
"For six months past she has been a tenant of yours."