Still he did not speak and seemed disinclined to do so, or to admit anything about himself. I was sorry that I had stopped to accost him, but now that I had done so I went on quite as a matter of course to give him tidings of the old Squire and of grandmother Ruth. "They are both living and well; they speak of you at times," I said. "Your disappearance grieved them. I don't think they ever blamed you." His face worked strangely; his hands, grasping the hoe handle, shook; but still he said nothing. "Have you ever had word from your folks at the old farm?" I asked him at length. "Have you had any news of them at all?" He shook his head. I then informed him that his son Jotham had died four years before; that Tom had gone abroad as an engineer; that Catherine was living at home, managing the old place and doing it well; that she had paid off the mortgage and was prospering. He listened in silence; but his face worked painfully at times. As I was speaking an elderly woman came to the door of the house and stood looking toward us. "That is my wife," he said, noticing that I saw her. "She is a good woman. She takes good care of me." I felt that it would be unkind to press him further and turned to go. "Would you like to send any word to your folks or to grandmother and the old Squire?" I asked. "Better not," said he with a kind of solemn sullenness. "I am out of all that. I'm the same's dead." I could see that he wished it so. He had not really and in so many words acknowledged his identity; but when I turned to go he followed me to the log fence round the garden and as I got over grasped my hand and held on for the longest time! I thought he would never let go. His hand felt rather cold. I suppose the sight of me and the home speech brought his early life vividly back to him. He swallowed hard several times without speaking, and again I saw his wrinkled face working. He let go at last, went heavily back and picked up his hoe; and as we drove on I saw him hoeing stolidly. The driver said that he had cleared up the little farm and built the log house and barn all by his own labor. For five years he had lived alone, but later he had married the widow of a Scotch immigrant. I noticed that this French-Canadian driver called him "M'sieur Andrews." It would seem that he had changed his name and begun anew in the world--or had tried to. How far he had succeeded I am unable to say.