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Eliphalet Congdon was engaged in an argument with the detective, who, being helpless, was obliged to endure a tirade the old gentleman was delivering to the accompaniment of an occasional prod of the inevitable umbrella. "That," said the Governor, "is Edith Congdon's paternal grandfather; an estimable person fallen upon evil times." "You don't mean Mr. Eliphalet Congdon!"
However, to keep me wife in tune, I'll go or come, as the case may be." Mrs. Brent did not attempt to be funny with this wounded bear, and they parted very good friends. As her visitor was going, Bertha suddenly said, "Wait a minute," and, going to her hand-bag, brought out an envelope addressed in Congdon's big scrawling hand. "Do you know these people?" Mrs. Brent glanced at it.
The kid'll be out lookin' fer y', and y' want to take mighty good care of 'er; she's the ole man's pet and he'll kill y' if anything goes wrong with 'er. Keep 'er out about an hour and be partickler careful. Between you and me there's somethin' queer about the kid bein' here; row o' some kind between her pa and ma. Her pa's here sick. Guess all them Congdon's got something wrong with 'em!"
Congdon's troubles were no affair of his he was beset by the fear that he might be doomed for the rest of his life to follow them, to view them from afar off, never speaking to them, but led on by the guilty knowledge that he was a dark factor in their lives. He became so engrossed that he lost track of them for a time; then a turn of the path brought him close upon them. Mrs.
The glint of pain in his eyes sent a wave of remorse through Archie's soul. Congdon bore his affliction manfully. There was about him nothing even remotely suggestive of Eliphalet Congdon's grotesque figure or excited, choppy speech. He had suffered and perhaps his wound was not alone responsible for his pallor or the hurt look in his eyes.
The light-hearted laughter of the children Putney Congdon's children was borne to him fitfully to add to his discomfiture, but he was held to the spot. There was something weirdly fascinating in their propinquity, and in the thought that he alone of all men on earth could ever tell them just what had happened in their house when their father went there to search for them.
"Why should he take so much interest in me? He don't have to. Of course the Mosses are nice to me on Congdon's account, but why does this great artist want me to come to his studio in New York? He talks poor, so maybe he wants me to buy some of his pictures." That her money was a lure for wasps she did not yet realize.
The appearance of Putney Congdon's father at Cornford had shaken him sufficiently, but that he should be haunted by the man's wife and children angered him. He wanted to fly from the park and hide himself again in his room at the Governor's house, but he was without will to leave.
A child's voice plaintively uttering this as he slunk round the house reminded him of the real nature of his sojourn on Eliphalet Congdon's acres. "Papa's sick; you must be nice to your papa. You must help him to get well, and then you can see your mama!"
The thing was not in any aspect a laughing matter. Amid other experiences he had freed himself for a few days of the thought of Putney Congdon lying dead in a lonely cleft of the Maine rocks, but meeting the man's family in this fashion was almost as disconcerting as a visit from Congdon's ghost. The Congdons had eaten their meal hurriedly and were already paying their check.
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