“Knowing them both, one can easily understand the outcome.  Robert disappeared, and a few years later, when the general died, he left his fortune to William Knight, his wife’s nephew.  Then after some little time the real thief turned up.  I won’t go into that, further than to say that it was through a deathbed confession to a priest.  Since then Knight has been searching far and wide for some trace of Robert, only to receive last week the evidence of his death twenty-five years ago.  And now comes the strange part of the story.  The very day on which he received this news, Knight came by chance upon a book which he recognised as once the property of Robert Waite.  The owner’s name was cut from the fly leaf, but below it was written the name of a young man whose acquaintance he had made last winter, Robert Deane Reynolds.  Deane was Rob’s middle name, so naturally it led to an investigation.”

Mr. Pennington looked over at Margaret Elizabeth.  “Have I told a straight story?” he asked.

“There were letters, you know,” she prompted.

“Oh, yes.  This young man had letters which I could have identified anywhere.”

Mrs. Pennington was interested.  She asked questions.  That absurd story about a Candy Wagon was untrue then?  But how had Margaret Elizabeth met this person?  She still referred to him as a person.  And somehow the united efforts of Margaret Elizabeth and Mr. Pennington failed to clear up the mystery, though they did their best.

Even if the Candy Wagon episode was to be regarded as humorous, though it did not present itself in that light to Mrs. Pennington, how could Margaret Elizabeth have asked a Candy Man to her Christmas tree?

“But you see, by that time I knew he wasn’t real, Aunt Eleanor, and anyway—­”

“Now go slow, Margaret Elizabeth,” cautioned her uncle.  “At heart you are a confounded little socialist, but take my advice and keep it to yourself.”  He was thinking of what she had said to him only the day before:  “You see, Uncle Gerry, you can’t have everything.  You have to choose.  And while I like bigness and richness, I like Little Red Chimneys and what they stand for, best.  I want to be on speaking terms with both ends, you see.”

“It is odd,” Mr. Pennington went on, “the tricks heredity plays, and that this young man and Augustus McAllister should both hark back to a common ancestor for their general characteristics of build and feature.  I was struck with the resemblance, myself.”

“It was what first attracted me,” owned Margaret Elizabeth demurely.

The name of Augustus still had painful associations for Mrs. Pennington.  She rose.  “Really we must be going,” she said.  At some future time she felt she might be able to meet Mr. Reynolds or Waite, or whatever his name was, with equanimity, but now she was thankful to hear he had gone back to Chicago for some papers.

She received Margaret Elizabeth’s farewell embrace languidly.  “Since there is such weight of authority in your favour, and matters have developed so strangely, there is nothing for me to say.  I dislike mystery, and prefer to have things go on regularly and according to precedent.  It is your welfare I have at heart.”