"My mother!" exclaimed Cliff with a sudden start and thrill of dismay, while he grew first crimson, then white.
"Yes, your mother," sharply repeated the squire, "and, as I said, she lived in New Haven, her father doing a good business there in gents' furnishing goods. She returned--or appeared to return--my regard for her, and we shortly became engaged and planned to be married the next fall, as soon as the harvesting was over. In June my brother returned from Europe--the same rollicking, pleasure-loving, indolent fellow he had always been. My mother urged him to settle down to some business or profession, but he kept putting her off, telling her that when he found something that suited him he'd dip in, as he expressed it; but he didn't find what he wanted and continued to live his lazy life, but spending money just as freely as ever. It was a bitter day for me when I introduced him to the girl I expected to marry. He expressed a great deal of admiration for her, called me a 'lucky dog' and said he should 'be very fond of his pretty sister-in-law.'"
The bitterness in Squire Talford's tones as he repeated these sayings of his brother plainly betrayed that his heart was still very sore from these painful experiences of the past.
"Well, it is the old story of treachery, and confidence betrayed," he resumed after a short pause. "He began to visit Belle on the sly, and wormed himself into her affections, and I, while I could see that she was not quite the same as she was before he came home, never dreamed of what was going on between them, until one day--just a month before the day set for our wedding--they both disappeared, leaving only this to tell what had occurred."
The squire paused again and drew from the inner pocket of his dressing-gown a small, square leather case, which he passed over to Clifford.
The young man took it with fingers that were trembling visibly, opened it and drew forth a soiled and yellow envelope addressed to Mr. Alfred H. Talford and in a hand which he instantly recognized to be his mother's.
Slipping the missive from the envelope, he unfolded it and read the following brief letter:
"ALFRED: I know that you can never forgive me the wrong I am doing you, but, too late, I have learned that I love another and not you. When you receive this I shall be the wife of that other--you well know who. I wish I could have saved you this blow, so near the day that was set for our wedding; but I should have doubly wronged you had I remained and fulfilled my pledge to you, with my heart irrevocably elsewhere. Forget and forgive if you can. T.A."