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“We’ll have to return to Lockwood—is that the name?”

He nodded.

“We’ll go back there for the night and return to Merlton, to-morrow.”

“Why won’t you come in, and see my father?” he asked.

“Well you see, Mauney, it’s—it’s so late, you know.”

Her explanation was patently false, for he saw her face struggle to remain composed, and then noticed a queer hardness come upon it.

“Do you know where the old Conyngham place is?” she asked.

“Sure. Over there!” he pointed to a field not far away.

“You knew about that, didn’t you?”

He shook his head and glanced with a puzzled expression toward the old, dilapidated house that had always stood at the edge of his father’s big corn field. It was uninhabited and partly obscured by wild cucumber vines.

“I only knew it was called the old Conyngham place,” he said. “When mother was alive, she used to go over there and keep geraniums in boxes in the front windows, and our hired man—the one we had before—lived there with his wife for quite a long time.”

“Well, your mother used to live there, Mauney,” his aunt said, “She was looking after Uncle James. You see his wife had died and he was old and sick with asthma.” She glanced toward the opposite side of the road. “I suppose this bog-land here gave him the disease. He was all alone and when we got his letter, your mother made up her mind to come out and look after him. So she left Scotland when she was just seventeen. She remained right with him to the last, and certainly did not spare herself.”