“What! Don’t you know? Your grandfather, sir,” said the other firmly, “died of cut-throat fever. Oh yes, whatever they called it, he died of cut-throat fever. Very sudden it was. Of that I am quite certain, because my grandmother remembers the business perfectly well.” “Is it possible? Killed himself? Then, why did I never learn such a thing?” “I suppose they didn’t wish to worry you. Your father was but a child, I suppose, at the time. Perhaps they never told him. All the same, it’s perfectly true.” Committed suicide! He remembered the widow who never smiled--the pale-faced, heavy-eyed widow. He now understood why she went in mourning all the days of her life. He now learned in this unexpected manner, why she had retired to the quiet little Cornish village. Committed suicide! Why? It seemed a kind of sacrilege to ask this person. He hesitated; he took up a trifling ornament from the mantelshelf, and played with it. It dropped out of his fingers into the fender, and was broken. “Pray,” he asked, leaving the other question for the moment, “how came your grandmother to be separated from her own people?” “They went away into the country. And her father went silly. She never knew him when he wasn’t silly. He went silly when his brother-in-law was murdered.” “Brother-in-law murdered? Murdered! What is this? Good Lord, man! what do you mean with your murder and your suicide?” “Why, don’t you know? His brother-in-law was murdered on his grounds. And his wife died of the shock the same day. What else was it that drove him off his old chump?” “I--I--I--know nothing”--the vulgarity of the man passed unnoticed in the face of these revelations--“I assure you, nothing of these tragedies. They are all new to me. I have been told nothing.” “Never told you? Well, of all the---- Why, the old woman over there is never tired of talking about these things. Proud of them she is. And you never to know anything!” “Nothing. Is there more? And why do you call my great-grandfather mad?” “He’s as much my great-grandfather as yours. Mad? Well, I’ve seen him over the garden wall half a dozen times, walking up and down his terrace like a Polar bear. I don’t know what you call mad. As for me, I’m a man of business, and if I had a client who never opened or answered a letter, never spoke a word to anybody, neglected his children, let his house go to ruin, never went to church, would have no servants about the place--why, I should have that mis’rable creature locked up, that’s all.” Leonard put this point aside. “But you have not told me about his wife’s death. It is strange that I should be asking you these particulars of my own family.”