“No. He went off about ten years ago, boastful to the end of his great smash. His son--that’s my father--was in the City. He was a clerk all his life to a wine-merchant. He died four or five years ago. He was just able to pay for my articles--a hundred pounds--and the stamp--another eighty--and that pretty well cleared him out, except for a little insurance of a hundred. When he died I was just beginning to get along; and I’ve been able to live, and to keep my mother and my grandmother--it’s a tight fit, though--with what I can screw out of Mary Anne.” “Who is Mary Anne?” “My sister, Mary Anne. She’s a Board School teacher. But she shoves all the expenses on to me.” “Oh! I have a whole family of cousins, then, previously unknown. That is interesting. Are there more?” He remembered certain words spoken only that morning, and he winced. Here were poor relations, after all. Constance would be pleased. “No more--only me and Mary Anne. That is to say, no more that you would acknowledge as such. There’s all father’s cousins and their children: and all mother’s cousins and brothers and nephews and nieces: but you can’t rightly call them your cousins.” “Hardly, perhaps, much as one would like....” “Now, Mr. Campaigne. The old woman has been at me a long time to call upon you. I didn’t want to call. I don’t want to know you, and you don’t want to know me. But I came to please her and to let you know that she’s alive, and that she would like, above all things, to see you and to talk to you.” “Indeed! If that is all, I shall be very pleased to call.” “You see, she’s always been unlucky--born unlucky, so to speak. But she’s proud of her own family. They’ve never done anything for her, whatever they may have to do--have to do, I say.” He became threatening. “Have to do,” repeated Leonard softly. “In the future. It may be necessary to prove who we are, and that before many years--or months--or even days--and it might save trouble if you were to understand who she is, and who I am.” “You wish me to call upon my great-aunt. I will certainly do so.” “That’s what she wants. That’s why I came here to-night. Look here, sir: for my own part, I would not intrude upon you. I’ve not come to beg or to borrow. But for the old woman’s sake I’ve ventured to call and ask you to remember that she is your great-aunt. She’s seventy-two years of age, and now and then she frets a bit after a sight of her own people. She hasn’t seen any of them since your grandfather committed suicide. And that must have been about the year 1860, before you and I were born.” Leonard started. “My grandfather committed suicide? What do you mean? My grandfather died somewhere about 1860. What do you mean by saying that he killed himself?”