"Of course, these letters will tell Cliff a lot that I may never know anything about, and what is none o' my business," she mused, but with a yearning curiosity to know their contents, nevertheless. "I only hope, if the squire has been trying to cheat him out o' anything that belongs to him, they'll help to set him right."
Having restored all that she thought belonged there to the box, she set it one side, then finished packing the trunk, replaced the cover, and, rising, drew it to the corner where it was accustomed to stand.
Then taking the exhumed "skeleton" under her arm she marched straight down to her own room, where she locked it safely away in her own trunk and hid the key.
She was quite upset by the exciting discovery of the afternoon, and for the first time in many years lay awake until after midnight nervously conning the matter over in her mind, and trying to decide just what she ought to do about it. It proved to be a perplexing question, and she chewed the cud of indecision industriously for the next two weeks, while she scrubbed and cleaned, took up and put down carpets, washed, ironed, and hung curtains, and performed the manifold duties that throng upon the busy matron during house-cleaning time.
Half a dozen times she began a letter to Cliff asking him to come to Cedar Hill, as she had something important to tell him, but she tore each one up, her sense of loyalty to the squire making her feel that she ought to tell him of her discovery first; while, too, she doubted the wisdom of asking Cliff to leave his business and be at the expense of such a journey. Once she thought she would go to a lawyer and tell him the whole story, for she had a suspicion that there might be some property coming to Cliff if his identity could be proven. But such a measure did not quite commend itself to her, for she thought he might not care to have another party let into the secrets of his origin and his mother's domestic troubles, while she also reasoned that it would be only fair to give the squire a chance to voluntarily right the wrong he had committed.
The two weeks lengthened into a month, and she was no nearer a decision than on the day of her discovery.
Meantime, however, Providence was opening the way for her to be relieved of the burden which she felt was fast becoming too heavy to be borne.
Squire Talford, on arriving in Washington, took a room in a boarding-house in a quiet street. He did not like hotel-life for numerous reasons, the chief one being that he was too economically inclined to spend his money in that way, while he also objected to the constant change, rush, and excitement of such a place.
Now, it happened, strangely enough, that Clifford had a room in a house adjoining Squire Talford's boarding-place, although he took his meals farther down on the same street.
Thus it naturally came about that the whilom bound boy and his former master ran up against each other only a few days after the arrival of the latter in the nation's capital. The encounter occurred on Sunday, about the middle of the afternoon, when Clifford, with a red moss-rosebud on his coat, started forth for the Lamonti mansion, where he was to dine with the Heatherfords.