There remained a task not to be shirked—he must ascertain, beyond doubt, that Nancy was really dead. Gathering the four letters in whose yellowing sheets was summarized the whole story of his wasted life, he placed them in a pocketbook. In doing so, he happened to touch the case containing the ring he had bought for Meg. Oddly enough, that simple incident cost him the sharpest pang; but he conquered his emotions, much as a man might do who was facing unavoidable death, and even forced his trembling fingers to put the envelop which held Nancy’s white heather side by side with Marguerite’s diamonds. Then he went out.
An oldtime acquaintance in Denver with the ways of journalism led him to the nearest newspaper office. There he asked to be taken to the news editor’s room, and a busy man looked at him curiously when he explained that he wanted to know whether or not Mrs. Marten, wife of Hugh Marten, was living, and, if dead, the date of her demise.
There was something in Power’s manner that puzzled the journalist, some hint of tragedy and immeasurable loss, but he was courteously explicit.
“You mean Hugh Marten, the financier, formerly of Colorado?” he inquired.
“Yes, that is the man.”
The other took a volume from a shelf of biographies, by which is meant the newspaper variety—typed accounts of notable people still living, together with newspaper cuttings referring to recent events in their careers. Soon he had a pencil on an entry.
“Yes,” he said. “Mrs. Marten has been dead nearly seven years.”
“And her child? Is the child living?”
“Yes. Poor lady! She died in giving it birth. I remember now. It was a very sad business. Mrs. Marten was a remarkably beautiful woman. Her husband was inconsolable. He has not married again; but is devoted to his little daughter, who, by the way, was named after her mother—Nancy Willard Marten. Ah, of course, that middle name reminds me of something else. Mrs. Marten’s father, Francis Willard, was accidentally shot last year.”
“Shot?”