“When I heard the name of Wingate the first time that I come to the valley and stopped all night at Clayton’s I was goin’ to ask him all about you and tell him what I knowed; but he made me mad, when he cut me off that way, and I didn’t. 'Tain’t no good excuse fer not tellin’, I reckon, an’ you may think I hadn’t any better excuse later on, but that’s why I didn’t, anyway. Davison’s treatin’ me the way he did and that trouble I had with you made me keep my head shet till now. But that fortune teller, when I seen her the second time, said fer me to tell you the whole thing, and so I’m doin’ it, though mebbe it won’t please you.” Sander’s tone was apologetic. Justin heard in amazed bewilderment. Philip Davison his father! The thing was incredible, impossible. But he opened the memorandum book with reverent fingers, as Sanders wandered on with his explanations and excuses. This little diary at least was real. The first glance showed him the familiar handwriting which he knew to be his mother’s. He knew every curve and turn of the letters penned in the little Bible, which at that moment was in his trunk at the hotel. There she had written: “Justin, my baby boy, is now six months old. May God bless and preserve him and may he become a good man.” Here was the same handwriting, a portion of it in pencil so worn in places as to be almost illegible. Hardly hearing what Sanders was now saying Justin began to read. The dates were far apart. Some of the things set down had been written before Justin was born; others must have been penciled shortly before her death. Many were unrelated and told of trivial things. Others concerned her husband and her child. The details were more complete in the later pencilled notes, where she had sought to make a record for the benefit of her boy in the event of her death, which she seemed to foresee or fear. There was sadness here and tears and the story of a pitiful tragedy; and here also in full were the names of her husband and her son.