“Yes?”
“You already know the circumstances?”
“No, not at all. Except that a letter from some missionary started Mr. Matheson on an investigation which brought to light a letter written about seventeen years ago to the Nagasaki consul. He was an awful fool—the consul, you know—let everything take care of itself; so this matter was clean forgotten, or rather ignored. It seems his successor was a brighter fellow, and he sent the correspondence from Sendai to Nagasaki on to Tokyo.”
“Yes, and I believe the letters you hold will supply the missing links. Let me tell you the facts of the case—that is, so far as I know them. About eighteen years ago, Mr. Lorrimer was married to a Miss Barbara Woodward, a Boston girl. The marriage was one of those unfortunate, hasty, society affairs in which the parents play the leading parts.”
“I understand,” the other nodded.
“They were mismated,” continued the narrator—“unsuited to each other in every way. Their temperaments constantly jarred; they had few interests in common. Life became a burden to them. Time, however, did much to heal the breach, and finally Mrs. Lorrimer expected to become a mother. They were in Japan at the time, and she had a fancy that the child should be born here. In spite of her happy expectations, she became excessively morbid and pessimistic. She began to have hallucinations, to suspect my client of impossible things—infidelity and so forth—and hence acted as only a thoroughly unreasonable woman would. She conceived an unreasoning dislike for a Miss Farrell, and, I understand, accused her husband of being in love with the lady. Doubtless, fancying she was wronged, the poor, misguided thing left her husband—in short, ran away from him. Mr. Lorrimer took steps to ascertain her whereabouts, but was unsuccessful. Under the circumstances he returned to Boston, secured a divorce, and—ah—married Miss Farrell.”
The younger man frowned and cleared his throat slightly.
“Ugly affair,” he simply essayed, quietly.
“Yes, it was. Average woman a fool. But now I come to my point. There was a child.”
The young man whistled softly.