“He is a widower. He buried his wife a dozen or fifteen years ago. At one time he was some interested in farming, having no other business; but he gave that up also after his wife’s death, and, by degrees, the last dozen years has grown into a rather sour and crabbed old man.” “A man of years, then?” “Yes; Jacob Moore is about seventy years old.” “Any children?” “Only one of his own--a girl named Mabel, now in the twenties, and who was married about a year ago to a man named Jeffrey. Besides this girl, Moore also has reared the son of a deceased sister. He is now a man of twenty-five and the Richard Thorpe who wired me the news of his uncle’s death.” “Does Thorpe live with his uncle?” “A portion of the time, though for the most part in Boston, where he is in the brokerage business.” “Does the daughter live at home?” “No, not for a year or more,” replied the lawyer. “And I now come to those painful circumstances which lead me to----” “Never mind by what you are led,” interposed Keene, smiling faintly. “Give me the bare facts.” “They are these,” nodded the lawyer gravely. “Two years ago, Jacob Moore took it into his head that it would be well if his daughter were married to Thorpe, and the couple settled in the old home. Now, bear in mind that Jacob Moore was not a man to be easily turned from a project which he seriously favored. His proposition proved acceptable to his nephew, but not to his daughter. She flatly declared that she’d not even think of it.” “Whatever it may have been like,” replied the lawyer, “the girl proved inflexible. The family broil, however, brought out the fact that she was in love with another, a man named Jeffrey, who is a carpenter by trade, and is said to be an honest and reliable fellow. I have seen him but once. If he is as good a man as he looks, I don’t blame the girl for her choice.” “Did Mr. Moore give his consent to the girl’s marriage to Jeffrey?” asked Keene carelessly. “Quite the contrary,” said the lawyer, with significance. “He threatened to disown the girl if she married him, which, with a will quite as strong as that of the old man himself, she speedily did. As a result, there has been a total estrangement of the two ever since.” “Has the girl always been so headstrong?” “She has always been dutiful, as I have observed her, and, to my way of thinking, was so in this matter. Her final determination resulted not only from a genuine love for Jeffrey, but also from the fact that he had recently buried his mother, by whose death he was left alone in the world. He had, however, a comfortable house, with several acres of arable land. To make a long story short, Mabel Moore, despite her father’s bitter opposition, married Jeffrey and went to live with him.” “This was about a year ago?”