“I should like to know something of Mr. Glenarm’s
last days,” I said abruptly.

“He wished to visit the village where he was born,
and Bates, his companion and servant, went to Vermont
with him. He died quite suddenly, and was buried beside
his father in the old village cemetery. I saw him
last early in the summer. I was away from home and
did not know of his death until it was all over. Bates
came to report it to me, and to sign the necessary papers
in probating the will. It had to be done in the place of
the decedent’s residence, and we went together to Wabana,
the seat of the county in which Annandale lies.”

I was silent after this, looking out toward the sea
that had lured me since my earliest dreams of the world
that lay beyond it.

“It’s a poor stake, Glenarm,” remarked Pickering
consolingly, and I wheeled upon him.

“I suppose you think it a poor stake! I suppose you
can’t see anything in that old man’s life beyond his
money; but I don’t care a curse what my inheritance is!
I never obeyed any of my grandfather’s wishes in his
lifetime, but now that he’s dead his last wish is mandatory.
I’m going out there to spend a year if I die
for it. Do you get my idea?”

“Humph! You always were a stormy petrel,” he