"Say!" and throwing down his trowel he hunted for something in his hip pocket. "You was asking me about that town in the East--Alton. Well, I found this after you had gone." He produced a tattered package of what seemed to be old letters, yellowed with age and torn at the corners, and handed them up to Adelle. "They were grandfather's and mother always kep' 'em; I don't know why. When she died one of my sisters giv' em to me. I been totin' 'em 'round in my trunk ever since. They're kind of dirty and spotted," he apologized for their condition. "But they were pretty old, I guess, when I got 'em, and they ain't had much care since.... Last night after you were up there I got 'em out of the trunk and tried to read 'em. There's one there from Alton--it's got the postmark on the outside." Clark pointed with his mortar-coated thumb to the faint circle of the stamp in the corner. Adelle took the letter from him with a sense of faintness that she could not explain. She had been right in her conjecture: that seemed to her a very great point. "I was bringin' 'em up to the house last night," the mason explained, "but seen you had company, so kep' 'em until to-day." So he had not thought of going to San Francisco on a spree! Adelle's woman conceit might have been sadly dashed. "May I read them?" she asked, looking curiously at the package of faded letters. "Sure! Read 'em over. That's what I brought 'em to you for," the mason said heartily. "I couldn't make much out of the old writing myself. I ain't no scholar, you know, and the ink is pretty thin in spots. But I seed the Alton postmark and thought you would be interested." "I'll look them over," Adelle said slowly, "and let you know what I find in them." She carried the letters with her back to her rooms, but she did not open them at once. She had no desire to do so, now that she had them. It was not until the afternoon, while she was lounging in her room,--Archie having gone to play polo at the club,--that she finally took up the stained packet of old letters, and opened them. They were addressed variously to "E. S. Clark," or "Edward S. Clark," and one to "E. Stanley Clark," but that was a later one than the others and had to do with some land business in California. The mason had spoken of his grandfather as "Stanley Clark"--"old Stan Clark," he called him. Evidently the elder Clark had called himself by his middle name after settling in California, but before that he had been known as "Edward" or "Edward S. Clark."