"You recall how Rob disappeared, without a word to any of his friends? It was not till some years after the general's death that I had the least clue to it; then William Knight came to me to know if I could give any help in tracing him. He owned that there had been some trouble between General Waite and Robert, and that the latter had been unjustly treated. I couldn't give him any assistance, and I never discussed it with him again. Knight was always close-mouthed, and it was only the other day that I learned what the trouble was. It seems the general suspected his nephew of taking a large sum of money from the safe in his library. It was one of those cases of complete circumstantial evidence. Rob was known to have lost money on the races. He was the only one beside the general himself who had access to the safe, and who knew that this money, several thousand dollars, was there at this time. That is, so it was supposed. "Knowing them both, one can easily understand the outcome. Robert disappeared, and a few years later, when the general died, he left his fortune to William Knight, his wife's nephew. Then after some little time the real thief turned up. I won't go into that, further than to say that it was through a deathbed confession to a priest. Since then Knight has been searching far and wide for some trace of Robert, only to receive last week the evidence of his death twenty-five years ago. And now comes the strange part of the story. The very day on which he received this news, Knight came by chance upon a book which he recognised as once the property of Robert Waite. The owner's name was cut from the fly leaf, but below it was written the name of a young man whose acquaintance he had made last winter, Robert Deane Reynolds. Deane was Rob's middle name, so naturally it led to an investigation." Mr. Pennington looked over at Margaret Elizabeth. "Have I told a straight story?" he asked. "There were letters, you know," she prompted. "Oh, yes. This young man had letters which I could have identified anywhere." Mrs. Pennington was interested. She asked questions. That absurd story about a Candy Wagon was untrue then? But how had Margaret Elizabeth met this person? She still referred to him as a person. And somehow the united efforts of Margaret Elizabeth and Mr. Pennington failed to clear up the mystery, though they did their best. Even if the Candy Wagon episode was to be regarded as humorous, though it did not present itself in that light to Mrs. Pennington, how could Margaret Elizabeth have asked a Candy Man to her Christmas tree? "But you see, by that time I knew he wasn't real, Aunt Eleanor, and anyway--"