“Yes, sir. And he was killed. Poor Aunt Margaret saw it. She came back to the house riding in a miserable dump-cart, holding his head in her lap. She wouldn’t let my mother come near him. ‘Now he knows which loved him best,’ she said ‘He’s _mine_!’ And it didn’t soften her when my mother married my father. She seemed to think that proved she hadn’t cared for Colonel Cary. Then the yellow-fever came, and they all went. Her mind broke down completely then; she used to think that on the day Colonel Cary was shot they all came back for a while, and she would set chairs for them and offer them wine and cake—as if they were visiting her. And after they left she would pour the wine in the glasses into the grate and burn the cake. She said that they enjoyed it, and ate really, but they left a semblance. She got hold of some queer books, I reckon, for she had the strangest notions; and she spent no end of money on some spiritual mediums; greedy harpies that got a heap of money out of her. My father and mother had come to Cary Hall, then, to live, and of course they didn’t like it. The great trouble, my mother often said to me, was that though they were sisters, they were raised apart, and were as much strangers as—we are. You can imagine how they felt to see the property being squandered. Ten thousand dollars, sir, went in one year—” “Are you sure it did go?” said the sheriff. “Well, the property was sold, and we never saw anything afterwards of the money. And the estate wasn’t a bottomless well. It isn’t so strange, sir, that—that they had poor Aunt Margaret cared for.” “At an insane asylum?” “Yes, sir, for five years. I confess,” said the young man, jumping up and pacing the room—“I confess I think it was a horrible place, horrible. But they didn’t know. It was only after she recovered her senses and was released that we began to understand what she suffered. Not so much then, for she was shy of us all. She was so scared, poor thing! And then—we began to suspect that she was not cured of her delusions. Maybe there _were_ consultations and talk about her, though indeed, sir, my mother has assured me many times that there was no intention of sending her back. But she is very shrewd, and she would notice how doors would be shut and the conversation would be changed when she entered a room, and her suspicions were aroused. She managed to raise some money on a mortgage, and she ran away, leaving not a trace behind her. My mother has reproached herself ever since. And we’ve tried to find her. It has preyed upon my mother’s mind that she might be living somewhere, poor and lonely and neglected. We are not rich people,” said the young man, lifting his head proudly, “but we have enough. I come to offer Aunt Margaret money, not to ask it. We’ve kept up the place, and bit by bit paid off the mortgage, though it has come hard sometimes. And it was awkward the title being in that kind of shape, and ma wouldn’t for a long time get it quieted.”