“Then she was already married!”

Mary’s dismay was unfeigned and spontaneous, and her father’s irritation grew more pronounced.  He had not meant that.  It had slipped out.

“There was a divorce afterward, of course.  I never knew the details.  Her mother died out in China—­no; in Tasmania.  It was in China that Tom—­” His lips shut with almost a snap.  He was not going to make any more slips.  Mary waited, then turned to the door, where she paused.

“I’ve given her the rooms over the rose court,” she said.  “And I’m going now to take a last look.”

Frederick Travers turned back to the desk, as if to put the letters away, changed his mind, and slowly and ponderingly reread them.

“Dear Fred: 

“It’s been a long time since I was so near to the old home, and I’d like to take a run up.  Unfortunately, I played ducks and drakes with my Yucatan project—­I think I wrote about it—­and I’m broke as usual.  Could you advance me funds for the run?  I’d like to arrive first class.  Polly is with me, you know.  I wonder how you two will get along.

“Tom.

“P.S.  If it doesn’t bother you too much, send it along
next mail.”

"Dear Uncle Fred":

the other letter ran, in what seemed to him a strange, foreign-taught, yet distinctly feminine hand.

“Dad doesn’t know I am writing this.  He told me what he said to you.  It is not true.  He is coming home to die.  He doesn’t know it, but I’ve talked with the doctors.  And he’ll have to come home, for we have no money.  We’re in a stuffy little boarding house, and it is not the place for Dad.  He’s helped other persons all his life, and now is the time to help him.  He didn’t play ducks and drakes in Yucatan.  I was with him, and I know.  He dropped all he had there, and he was robbed.  He can’t play the business game against New Yorkers.  That explains it all, and I am proud he can’t.

“He always laughs and says I’ll never be able to get along with you.  But I don’t agree with him.  Besides, I’ve never seen a really, truly blood relative in my life, and there’s your daughter.  Think of it!—­a real live cousin!

                                                   “In anticipation,
          
                                              “Your niece,
                                “Bronislawa Plaskoweitzkaia Travers.

“P.S.  You’d better telegraph the money, or you won’t see Dad at all.  He doesn’t know how sick he is, and if he meets any of his old friends he’ll be off and away on some wild goose chase.  He’s beginning to talk Alaska.  Says it will get the fever out of his bones.  Please know that we must pay the boarding house, or else we’ll arrive without luggage.

“B.P.T.”

Frederick Travers opened the door of a large, built-in safe and methodically put the letters away in a compartment labelled “Thomas Travers.”