People grow older, even on the Cape, where hurry--except by the automobiles of summer residents--is not considered good form and where Father Time is supposed to sit down to rest. Judge Baxter, Ostable's leading attorney-at-law, had lived quietly and comfortably during the years which had passed since, as Marcellus Hall's lawyer, he read the astonishing letter to the partners of Hamilton and Company. He was over seventy now, and behind his back Ostable folks referred to him as "old Judge Baxter"; but although his spectacles were stronger than at that time, his mental faculties were not perceptibly weaker, and he walked with as firm, if not so rapid, a stride. So when, at eleven in the forenoon of the day following Mary's dinner at the Howes' home, the Judge heard someone enter the outer room of his offices near the Ostable courthouse, he rose from his chair in the inner room and, without waiting for his clerk to announce the visitor, opened the door himself.
The caller whose question the clerk was about to answer, or would probably have answered as soon as he finished staring in awestruck admiration, was a young lady. The Judge looked at her over his spectacles and then through them and decided that she was a stranger. He stepped forward.
"I am Judge Baxter," he said. "Did you wish to see me?"
She turned toward him. "Yes," she said simply. "I should like to talk with you for a few moments if you are not too busy."
The Judge hesitated momentarily. Only the week before a persistent and fluent young female had talked him into the purchase of a set of "Lives of the Great Jurists," the same to be paid for in thirty-five installments of two dollars each. Mrs. Baxter had pronounced the "Great Jurists" great humbugs, and her husband, although he pretended to find the "Lives" very interesting, was secretly inclined to agree with her. So he hesitated. The young woman, evidently noticing his hesitation, added:
"If you are engaged just now I shall wait. I came to see you on a matter of business, legal business."
Judge Baxter tried to look as if no thought of his visitor's having another purpose had entered his mind.
"Oh, yes, certainly! Of course!" he said hastily, and added: "Will you walk in?"
She walked in--to the private office, that is--and the Judge, following her, closed the door. His clerk stared wistfully at his own side of that door for a full minute, then sighed heavily and resumed his work, which was copying a list of household effects belonging to a late lamented who had willed them, separately and individually, to goodness knew how many cousins, first, second, and third.
In the private office the Judge asked his visitor to be seated. She took the chair he brought forward. Then she said:
"You don't remember me, I think, Judge Baxter. I am Mary Lathrop."
The Judge looked puzzled. The name sounded familiar, but he could not seem to identify its owner.
"Perhaps you would remember me if I told you my whole name," suggested the latter. "I am Mary Augusta Lathrop. I think perhaps you used to call me Mary'-Gusta; most people did."
Then the Judge remembered. His astonishment was great.
"Mary-'Gusta Lathrop!" he repeated. "Mary-'Gusta! Are you--? Why, it scarcely seems possible! And yet, now that I look, I can see that it is. Bless my soul and body! How do you do? It must be almost--er--seven or eight years since I have seen you. South Harniss is only a few miles off, but I am getting--er--older and I don't drive as much as I used to. But there! I am very glad to see you now. And how are Captain Gould and Mr. Hamilton? There is no need to ask how you are. Your looks are the best answer to that."
Mary thanked him and said she was very well. Her uncles, too, were well, she added, or they were when she last heard.
"I am on my way home to them now," she added. "For the past two years I have been at school in Boston. I left there this morning and got off the train here because I wished very much to see you, Judge Baxter. Yesterday--last evening--I heard something--I was told something which, if it is true, is--is--"
She bit her lip. She was evidently fighting desperately not to lose self-control. The Judge was surprised and disturbed.
"Why, Mary!" he exclaimed. "I suppose I may call you Mary still; as an old friend I hope I may. What is the matter? What did you hear?
What do you wish to see me about?"
She was calm enough now, but her earnestness was unmistakable.
"I heard something concerning myself and my uncles which surprised and shocked me dreadfully," she said. "I can hardly believe it, but I must know whether it is true or not. I must know at once! You can tell me the truth, Judge Baxter, if you only will. That is why I came here this morning. Will you tell it to me? Will you promise that you will answer my questions, every one, with the exact truth and nothing else? And answer them all? Will you promise that?"
The Judge looked even more surprised and puzzled. He rubbed his chin and smiled doubtfully.
"Well, Mary," he said, "I think I can promise that if I answer your questions at all I shall answer them truthfully. But I scarcely like to promise to answer them without knowing what they are. A lawyer has a good many secrets intrusted to him and he is obliged to be careful."
"I know. But this is a secret in which I am interested. I am interested in it more than anyone else. I must know the truth about it! I MUST! If you won't tell me I shall find out somehow. WILL you tell?"
Judge Baxter rubbed his chin again.
"Don't you think you had better ask your questions?" he suggested.
"Yes; yes, I do. I will. How much money did my stepfather, Captain Marcellus Hall, have when he died?"
The Judge's chin-rubbing ceased. His eyebrows drew together.
"Why do you want to know?" he asked, after a moment.
"Because I do. Because it is very important that I should. It is my right to know. Was he a rich man?"
"Um--er--no. I should not call him that. Hardly a rich man."
"Was he very poor?"
"Mary, I don't exactly see why--"
