"Yes, sir, that's my name."
"Mr. Alden, my name is Mason. I am from Bridgeburg, district attorney of Cataraqui County."
"Yes, sir," replied Titus, wondering by what strange chance the district attorney of so distant a county should be approaching and inquiring of him. And Mason now looked at Titus, not knowing just how to begin. The bitterness of the news he had to impart—the crumpling power of it upon such an obviously feeble and inadequate soul. They had paused under one of the large, dark fir trees that stood in front of the house. The wind in its needles was whispering its world-old murmur.
"Mr. Alden," began Mason, with more solemnity and delicacy than ordinarily characterized him, "you are the father of a girl by the name of Bert, or possibly Alberta, are you not? I'm not sure that I have the name right."
"Roberta," corrected Titus Alden, a titillating sense of something untoward affecting his nerves as he said it.
And Mason, before making it impossible, probably, for this man to connectedly inform him concerning all that he wished to know, now proceeded to inquire: "By the way, do you happen to know a young man around here by the name of Clifford Golden?"
"I don't recall that I ever heard of any such person," replied Titus, slowly.
"Or Carl Graham?"
"No, sir. No one by that name either that I recall now."
"I thought so," exclaimed Mason, more to himself than to Titus. "By the way," this shrewdly and commandingly, "where is your daughter now?"