he sued the Colonel for a matter of four hundred dollars, but there was
the contract, plain as day, an' he lost his suit. Just about put him out
of business an' he had to move away. The Colonel gave one of the houses
to Mary--Mrs. Craig she was by that time--and the other to Evelyn when
she married Irv Walton a year afterwards."

"But look here," said Wade. "Do you mean that Ed Craig's mother and Miss
Walton's mother were sisters?"

"Yes, Ed and Eve was first cousins."

"Well, I'll be hanged!" sighed Wade. "I never savvied that. What became
of Mr. Walton, Ed's uncle?"

"Dead. Irv was what you call a genius, a writer chap. Came of a good
family over to Concord, he did, an' had a fine education at Exeter
Academy. He an' his wife never lived much at The Cedars--that's what
they called their place--but used to come here now and then in the
summer. They lived in New York. He had something to do with one of those
magazines published down there. Irv Walton was a fine lookin' man, but
sort of visionary. Made a lot of money at one time in mines out West an'
then lost it all about four years ago. That sort of preyed on his mind,
an' somethin' like a year after that he up an' died."

"And his wife?"

"Oh, she died when Eve was a little girl. An' Ed's mother died about
ten years ago. Miss Eve's the last one of the old Colonel's folks."

Wade sat silent for a minute, puffing hard on his cigar and trying to