“There is no doubt about it;” the man sat heavily in his chair. “Listen! She was eleven years old when she fell off her pony and injured her head. I was a comparatively poor man then, but I got the best surgeons. For months my little one lay in a hospital. We had no settled home. My wife died long before. Business called me away. When I returned Lucianna was pronounced cured. At least it was deemed safe to place her with some family where she would have every care, and no excitement. Should the trouble recur, an operation would be necessary.
“I found a home for her. Matters were arranged. Again I went West. Letters reached me regularly for many months. All seemed to be going well, in fact so satisfactorily that I, immersed in the starting of a business, ceased to worry. Yes, it must have been two years before I stopped my remittances, although those crafty letters had grown infrequent.
“I wrote the Harpinsons that I would be East soon and intended to take the child back with me.
“Then I received the shocking news of her death. Diphtheria, they said, and very sudden. A malignant case, and—well—the burial had been at night. Everything was done as if she belonged to them. As soon as quarantine was over they were going to move and would inform me of their location.”
Martha stood with her mouth open.
“Did they?” she hissed. “We must have had Lucianna for a good while before those critters said she was dead.”
“Yes,” said Crowson, frowning. “They bled me as long as possible. I received one more letter, postmarked Boston—a few details of no importance, but I had no suspicions. Since then, my letters have come back stamped, ‘no such party at address.’”
“But—” broke in Martha.
He held up an appealing hand.
“I know, I know,” he interrupted. “I should have gone on at once. Yet what could be done? The quarantine—the detention from business—the added grief. My child was gone. All was over. Nothing seemed left to me save strenuous work and the making of money. I own three stores like this, the result of losing Lucianna. Now I have found her, I’ll not work so hard.”