When Peter came back from Spain he came to an empty house. The big
reception rooms at Bowshott were swathed in brown holland and
dust-sheets, pictures were covered and carpets rolled up, giving an air
of desolation to the place. The flowers in the formal gardens had all
been dug up, and the carefully tended designs--so like a stitchwork
pattern--had lost their mosaic of colour, leaving merely a careful
drawing of brown upon green. The banks of flowering exotics, which his
mother had loved to have in her drawing-rooms, had been removed to the
greenhouses and conservatories. The sight of the gardeners mowing, for
the last time in the season, the hundred-year-old turf of the lawn
conveyed a suggestion of regret with it; the old pony harnessed to the
mowing machine stepped sedately and quietly in his boots on the close,
fine grass. Everything about Bowshott looked stately and beautiful in
the clean, sharp air of the morning, when Peter drove up to the
entrance after a long night journey and ascended the flight of steps
leading to the hall door.
His return to the inheritance which had been indisputably his since he
was a little boy had a horrible feeling of unreality about it. Half a
dozen times in the course of the morning he had to check himself when
he found his thoughts wandering to alterations or improvements, and to
tell himself, with a bewildered feeling, that perhaps he had not a
right to a flower in the garden or a chair in the house.
'I can't believe it's not mine,' he said aloud, as he drove up the long
avenue from the station in his dog-cart, with one of the famous
Bowshott hackneys in the shafts. 'I can't believe it's not mine!'
Many people might have found in the singular unhomeliness of the big
house a just cause for withholding their affection from it, but Peter
had always loved it. Every corner of the place was full of memories to
him. Here was the wall of the terrace off which, as a little boy, he
used to jump, making horrible heelmarks in the turf where he alighted;
and there was the stone summer-house, built after the fashion of a
small Greek temple, but only interesting to Peter Ogilvie from the fact
that he used to keep his wheelbarrow and garden tools there. He
remembered the first day when it had suddenly struck him that the
geometrically shaped flower-beds were designed after a pattern, and he
had counted, with his nurse, the loops and circles in the design.
There, again, were the fountains with their silver spray, in whose
basins, by the inexorable but utterly unintelligible law of the
nursery, he had never been allowed to play. Here was the clock on the
tower which used to boom out every hour as it passed, but of whose
strokes he was never conscious except when he heard it at night.
Passing inside the house was the hall, with its big round tables by the
fire, and beyond that was the library and his mother's drawing-room;
while in the older wings of the house were the ballroom where Charles
I. had banqueted, and the Sèvres sitting-room, so called from the china
plaques let into the mantelpiece, where he had made love.
'I hope, if my brother is alive, that he is a good sort of chap,' said
Peter.
He breakfasted in the tapestried room which he had ordered to be kept
open for him, and then went into the library to write his letters. He
had a hundred things to do. At lunch-time he interviewed his steward,
his agent, his stud-groom, and the other heads of departments of a
large estate. The horses were to be sold with the exception of a few
favourites. The gardens were to be kept up as usual.
Some dogs of his mother's would be cared for, his bankers would pay the
usual subscriptions to local charities, and the almshouses in the
village were to be maintained as they had always been maintained.
After lunch Mr. Semple, the lawyer, arrived. He was a pleasant man and
a keen botanist. The gardens at Bowshott were a delight to him, and
Peter had often found him good company over a cigar in the evenings.
Mr. Semple was one of those who had throughout urged secrecy and
caution in the matter of the late Mrs. Ogilvie's communication. 'In
the first place,' he said, 'it may still be proved to have been an
hallucination of her mind, attendant upon her state of health; and, in
the second place, anything like publicity might bring a host of
aspirants and adventurers whose claims would take months of
investigation to dispose of.' He advised that everything about the
house should remain in its present state for a year, until a proper
legal inquiry into the disappearance of the elder son could be
instituted.
'He may have died as a child, although he wasn't buried at Juarez,'
said Peter.
Jane had departed to spend her usual six months of the year with
General Erskine, but she had written to say, positively, that she knew
it would come all right; and whenever Peter was downhearted he always
thought of her letter, believing, in all simplicity, that Jane was
never wrong. If only she were at Miss Abingdon's now, instead of in
her uncle's house in Grosvenor Place!
'She 'll miss the hunting, I 'm afraid,' he thought miserably,
contrasting their present separation with all the joy and happiness
that they had so fully intended should be theirs this winter.
Mr. Semple had a shrewdness acquired from many years' experience in
legal matters, and he shook his head when Peter made the suggestion
that probably his brother had died in infancy. 'The conclusion I have
arrived at, after years of legal work,' he said, 'is that the
undesirable person lives, while the useful or much wanted one dies.
Those who encumber the ground remain longest upon it, and the person in
receipt of a large annuity or pension is proverbially long-lived.
However, we have so far not found a single trace of the existence of
Edward Ogilvie, though you must remember we have not yet ascertained in
which different parts of Spain your mother lived during those two years
which she spent there.'
'I don't see who on earth is to tell us!' ejaculated Peter. 'She
generally had foreign maids about her, and I think I always had French
nurses. I never heard of any old servant who went with her on her
travels; and although, of course, money was paid to her by her bank,
and letters were forwarded to her by the bankers, the actual addresses
to which they were sent have not been kept after an interval of
twenty-five years. One of the old clerks at Coutts's remembers, in an
indefinite sort of way, that he forwarded packages for a long time to
Madrid, and afterwards, he thinks, to Toledo, and then farther south,
and at one time to Cintra; but my mother's headquarters seem always to
have been in Granada, and the clerk says that he can give me no dates
nor indeed any exact information.'
'I did not know she had been at Cintra or Toledo,' said Mr. Semple
thoughtfully.
'I won't swear that she had,' said Peter. 'The Peninsula wasn't so
generally known twenty-five years ago as it is now. Travelling was
difficult then, and people in England, who have not themselves
travelled much, are very liable to get confused about the names of
foreign places.'
'Still,' said the lawyer, 'Cintra and Toledo are places that every one
knows.'
'You mean,' said Peter, 'that in a well-known place, with English
people living in it, there would be more likelihood of getting the
information which we want?'
'I mean,' said Mr. Semple, 'that, as there is no evidence of your
brother ever having been seen at Juarez, the next thing is to find out
in what place there is evidence of his appearance.'
It was late afternoon, and as all clerical work for the day was now
finished, Peter suggested and Mr. Semple readily agreed to a walk in
the gardens. There was nothing left in the flower-beds, but the
conservatories and the orchid-house were a real feast of pleasure to
the lawyer. He went into the outer hall to fetch his stick and coat,
and then, turning back towards his host, he made a humorous signal to
convey the intelligence that some callers had driven up to the door.
Peter retreated precipitately; but Mr. Semple had already been seen and
was hailed by Mr. Lawrence, who had, a few minutes before, drawn up to
the entrance in his big red motor-car. Already Mr. Lawrence was in
earnest conversation with the butler, and his feminine-like
ejaculations could be heard now as he stood and conversed with the man
at the hall door. He stood on the doorstep while his guests in the
motor, who seemed to fear that they might be intrusive, looked as
though they would prefer to hasten their departure.
'Ah, how-do-you-do, Mr. Semple,' said Mr. Lawrence in his high-pitched
voice, advancing a few steps into the hall. 'It is a great piece of
luck meeting you like this! I have just driven over with my friends,
Sir John and Lady Falconer.--Lady Falconer, may I introduce my friend,
Mr. Semple?--This is a very sad house to come to, Mr. Semple, is it
not?' he said, and paused, hoping for a little gossip from the lawyer.
'I was just driving through the village, and I have been to see the
church with my friends, and we thought we would run in and inquire how
everything was going on.'
'Everything,' said the lawyer dryly, 'is going on as well as could be
expected.'
'How is Peter?' said Mr. Lawrence, putting on an appropriate expression
of woe, which sat oddly on his big healthy red face. He was a kindly
man at heart, but an idle existence and his inveterate love of gossip
had made a poor creature of him. His healthy muscular frame did not
know the sensation of that honest fatigue which follows a good day's
work, and his mind travelled on lines of so little resistance that he
may be said to have exercised it almost as infrequently as he exercised
his body.
Mr. Semple replied that Peter seemed well; and Mr. Lawrence, taking him
in an affectionate and familiar manner by the sleeve of his coat, said:
'I should so much like my friends to see the gardens; Peter would not
mind, would he?'
Lady Falconer, the least intrusive of women, who had heard the
whispered colloquy, here interposed and said that, as she was very
cold, she would much prefer to go home; and Sir John added with simple
directness that he thought that, as the place was more or less shut up
at present, the gardens had better wait for a more fitting occasion.
Mr. Lawrence protested that a walk would do Lady Falconer good, and
that, further, as they were leaving so soon, there would be no other
chance of seeing the famous gardens. In fact Mr. Lawrence had the door
of his motor-car open, and was helping Lady Falconer to alight almost
before he had obtained Mr. Semple's permission to make a tour of the
grounds.
'It's all right,' he said, in his fussy, dictatorial way, divesting
himself of his heavy motor-coat, and preparing to act as cicerone.
'This place is thrown open once a week to the public; and although this
isn't a visitors' day all sorts of people come to visit Bowshott on the
other days of the week.'
Lady Falconer felt slightly ruffled by the way in which her wishes had
been ignored in a small matter, and confined herself to talking to the
lawyer; but Mr. Lawrence overtook them on the pretext of pointing out
some special beauty of the design of the gardens, or of the fine view
that could be obtained from the high position of the terraces, and the
next moment he had plunged somewhat ruthlessly into the absorbing topic
of Mrs. Ogilvie's sudden death.
'We were all shocked by it,' he said, emphasizing his words in his
gushing way; 'and of course to our little circle,' he said, turning to
Mr. Semple in an explanatory manner, 'it is more particularly painful
and distressing, because Sir John and Lady Falconer had only just
renewed a very old acquaintance with the deceased lady.'
'We knew Mrs. Ogilvie very well in Spain,' said Lady Falconer in her
charming voice, still confining her remarks to Mr. Semple.
'Ah!' said the lawyer, 'you knew her in Spain?'
'Yes,' said Lady Falconer, 'and it was one of those friendships which I
believe it was intended on both sides should be renewed when we should
return to England; for, on my own and on my husband's part, it was a
matter of real liking. But we have been on foreign service ever since
we were married, and I never met Mrs. Ogilvie again till she drove over
to the races at Sedgwick.'
Mr. Semple detached himself and his companion from the little group
which Mr. Lawrence was showing round with so much assiduity, and, as
they paced the broad walks of the terrace together, he said to her,
with an air of frank confidence, 'You were with her, perhaps, before
her elder child died?'
'No,' said Lady Falconer, 'and rather strangely I never knew till the
other day that Mrs. Ogilvie had lost a child. There was only one boy
with her when we knew her at Juarez; and, although she was in deep
mourning at the time, we knew, of course, that she was in the first
year of her widowhood. But we had no idea, as I was telling Mrs.
Wrottesley the other day, that Mrs. Ogilvie had suffered a double loss.'
Mr. Semple led the way through the orchid-house and stopped to examine
some of the blooms with absorbed attention. 'It is very chilly,' he
said, as he stepped out into the cold air after that of the hot
greenhouse; 'I hope you will not catch cold.' He locked his hands
lightly behind his back as he walked, and continued to talk to the
companion by his side. 'I wonder,' he said, 'if you could tell me
exactly the year and the month when you first met Mrs. Ogilvie? There
are various formalities to be gone through, in connection with Captain
Ogilvie's accession to the property, which necessitate hunting up
family records, and these have been very badly kept in the Ogilvie
family. Also, may I say this to you in confidence? There was an idea
in many people's minds that, about the time of Colonel Ogilvie's death
and the early infancy of the second son, Peter, Mrs. Ogilvie's mind was
slightly unhinged for a time. It may not have been so, but one cannot
help wondering if the concealment which she has used to keep from her
family the knowledge of the existence of this disease from which she
has died may not have been something like a return of an old mental
malady.'
Lady Falconer looked genuinely distressed, and protested that certainly
when she knew Mrs. Ogilvie she was in all respects the most sane as
well as one of the most charming of women. 'And as for giving you
dates,' she said pleasantly, 'that is very easily done, for it was in
the year and the month of my marriage that I first met her.'
'That would be?' said Mr. Semple, unlocking his clasped hands and
touching his fingers together in the characteristic manner of the
confidential lawyer.
'That was in December 1885,' she said.
'Ah!' said Mr. Semple contemplatively, 'then it must have been after
little Edward Ogilvie's death, of course.'
'I cannot tell you,' said Lady Falconer, 'because, as I say, Mrs.
Ogilvie never spoke of her loss. Perhaps that does not seem to you
very remarkable, as we only met her in a most casual manner in an
out-of-the-way village in Spain; but we really were on terms of some
intimacy together, and one can only explain her silence by the fact,
which seems to be pretty generally known, that she was a woman of quite
unusual reserve.'
'Yes,' said Mr. Semple; 'I believe no one ever knew Mrs. Ogilvie very
well.'
Mr. Lawrence called to them from behind to suggest that the new row of
greenhouses was an immense improvement, and that they had cost over a
thousand pounds to build.
Lady Falconer politely turned to look back, and then found herself
rather determinedly appropriated by the lawyer.
'I always understood,' he said, 'that Mrs. Ogilvie travelled
considerably in Spain; and, of course, in those days when railways were
fewer, this was considered rather unusual, especially for a lady
travelling with no gentleman with her. How courageous she was!'
'Much more courageous than I was even with my husband with me!' said
Lady Falconer. 'Mrs. Ogilvie had been in quite out-of-the-way parts of
the country; but she spoke the language perfectly, and I believe I used
to hear that she had Spanish blood in her veins.'
'Yes; she had property at Granada, and beyond where the railway now
extends, in some of the more southern provinces,' hazarded Mr. Semple.
'I think if I remember aright,' said Lady Falconer, 'that she had just
returned from Cintra when I met her.'
'I have always heard that Cintra is a most lovely place,' said Mr.
Semple conversationally; 'and Mrs. Ogilvie had a peculiar love for
beautiful things.'
'Cintra is beautiful, and Lisbon itself is a particularly fine town,'
assented Lady Falconer.
'Mrs. Ogilvie was not there when you knew her?'
Lawyers are inquisitive by profession, and Mr. Semple made his
inquiries with easy tact; his manner was kind and pleasant, and
betrayed so much real feeling for his clients that Lady Falconer was
tempted to continue the subject of conversation in which he seemed so
deeply interested.
'I wish,' she said cordially, 'that I could remember more details that
might be of interest or of use to you. My husband and I have spent a
most varied life, in which many interesting experiences have, alas!
been almost forgotten; but we were both considerably impressed by Mrs.
Ogilvie's vivid personality and her very real charm. These made much
more impression on me than anything that she told us about her
journeys. She was fond of travelling by sea, I remember, and I
perfectly well recollect her telling my husband and me that she had
come by ship to Lisbon when she first came to travel in Spain for her
health.'
'Yes, I remember hearing that,' said Mr. Semple. 'Indeed, I believe
that we took her passage for her, and in going over her papers the
other day we came across two letters which she had written home from
the ship.'
'Talking of that,' said Lady Falconer, 'I wonder if the maid who was
with her during the time I was there could be of service to you? I
often think a maid must know her mistress with even a greater degree of
intimacy than many of her friends, and I remember it was a particularly
nice Spanish woman whose services she lent me when I was ill.'
Mr. Semple would like to know if Lady Falconer remembered whether the
woman had come out from England with Mrs. Ogilvie.
'I am afraid I cannot,' said Lady Falconer. 'But stop! Yes, I can.
The maid who came out from England with Mrs. Ogilvie left her because
she objected to the sea-voyage. It seems that the poor thing was so
ill that she never appeared the whole time, and as soon as the ship
touched port she went straight back to England by land. I remember it
quite well now, because that was a particularly stormy winter, with
dreadful gales; and when my illness was at its worst it was another
very stormy night, and this Spanish woman whom I mentioned just now
told me the story, and was evidently full of sympathy for the English
maid. She enlivened the whole of her watch during the night by
lamentations over the danger of sea-voyages, interspersed with prayers
to the Virgin. I shall never forget how it blew! The house shook with
the violence of the gale, and this Spanish woman sat by my bed and told
me stories of shipwreck and of bodies washed up on the beach. Mrs.
Ogilvie, I understand, had but lately parted with friends. Ah, I see
now! I do not speak Spanish well, and I remember I had an idea at the
time that this parting which the woman spoke of had something to do
with friends who had left her. But, of course, what the Spanish woman
must really have meant was that Mrs. Ogilvie had lately suffered a
bereavement.'
'It is strange, then, is it not,' said the lawyer, 'that you should
connect this parting in your own mind with the storm that was raging on
the night of which you spoke?'
'That doesn't seem to me very strange,' said Lady Falconer, 'because,
as I have said, I know so little Spanish. And yet I have an idea that
this very emotional serving-woman seemed to predict some horrible
catastrophe to the travellers.'
'How little self-control some of these people have!' commented Mr.
Semple. 'I always wonder how it is that ladies choose foreign women to
be their personal attendants. I suppose you don't happen to know if
this maid remained long with Mrs. Ogilvie?'
'I do not indeed,' said Lady Falconer; 'but I am under the impression
that Mrs. Ogilvie changed her maids frequently. This will coincide
with your view that she was in a nervous, uncontrolled condition at the
time, although in other respects I cannot honestly say that I ever
noticed the least sign of an unhinged mind. One thought that she was
too much alone; but, of course, her loss was a very recent one, and
everybody knows that in grief there often comes a desire for solitude.'
'It was sad, therefore,' said Mr. Semple, 'that these friends of hers
should be leaving her just then. Mrs. Ogilvie would have been all the
better for having a few intimates about her. It would be useful if you
could remember their names.'
'I do not even know that they were friends,' protested Lady Falconer;
'and, as I told you, the Spanish maid may well have been alluding to a
recent death. But indeed the incident made very little impression on
my mind; even if I were able to give you information about these
unknown friends I do not know how it could in any way help you to solve
the sad question of her mental state at the time.'
'You think these friends of hers whom you speak of would not be able to
do so either?'
'Ah!' cried Lady Falconer, 'you are accepting my vague recollections
almost as if they were legal evidence, whereas I really cannot tell you
whether the Spanish maid alluded to friends or to the death of Mrs.
Ogilvie's husband and her little boy. I can only say that the
impression that remains with me is that Mrs. Ogilvie had been seeing
some friends off on a voyage.'
'It would be important to know who those friends were,' said Mr. Semple.
'I wish I could help you!' said Lady Falconer.
They made a longer _détour_ in the gardens than Lady Falconer would
have cared to make had she not been interested in the man by her side,
whose inquisitiveness was based upon friendship, and whose most
persistent interrogations had been touched with a quiet and sober tact
which contrasted pleasantly with Mr. Lawrence's dictatorial manner.
That genial and rubicund person was now seen approaching with Sir John,
and suggested that they 'ought to draw Peter for tea.'
Lady Falconer declined the refreshment with considerable emphasis.
This visit to the closed house so recently shadowed by death seemed to
her in doubtful taste, and she would now have preferred to return home;
but Peter had seen them from the house, and being the least churlish of
men he came out on to the terrace and invited the party to come in. He
disliked Mr. Lawrence as much as it was in his uncritical nature to
dislike any one; but it is more than possible that he would have
resented a word said in his disfavour. 'Lawrence is a good fellow,' he
used to say charitably, 'only he is so beastly domestic.'
Mr. Lawrence's conversation was indeed principally of the intimate
order of things, and was concerned with details of births, deaths, and
marriages, such as the feminine rather than the male mind is more
generally supposed to indulge in. He drank several cups of tea, and
was deeply interested in the fact that the tea-service was not the one
in common use at Bowshott, and that, therefore, probably the bulk of
the silver had been sent to the bank. He would have liked to make a
tour of the rooms to see if there were any other changes noticeable
anywhere, and he more than once remarked to his friends as they drove
home in the motor-car that he could not understand why the
drawing-rooms were swathed in brown holland unless Peter meant to go
away again. If so, when was the marriage to be? Why should it be
postponed for more than a brief period of mourning? And why did the
rooms which he had seen through the windows wear such a shut-up and
dismantled appearance? He found food for speculation during the whole
afternoon call, and in his inquisitive way gave his mind to finding out
as much as possible about his neighbour's doings.
Lady Falconer sat by the fire of logs, while Mr. Lawrence's garrulous
conversation went on uninterruptedly. Peter found her quiet manner
attractive, and began to feel grateful to Mr. Lawrence for his
intrusiveness, without which he would not have enjoyed a conversation
with this pleasant, gentle-mannered woman seated thoughtfully by the
fire.
'May I ask a favour?' said Mr. Lawrence gushingly, laying his hand upon
Peter's shoulder. 'I want awfully to see that new heating apparatus
you have had put in downstairs. I was recommending it the other day to
Carstairs; but I want to know something more about it, and then I shall
be able to explain it better. How much coal, for instance, do you find
it consumes?'
When the two had sought the lower regions Mr. Semple took Peter's
vacant chair by the fire. Lady Falconer held her muff between her and
the blaze, and her face was in shadow. The lawyer said briefly, 'We
are in great perplexity, and I think you can help us, and I feel
sure'--he looked at her with admiration--'that whatever I say to you
will be received in confidence.'
'It shall be in confidence,' said Lady Falconer.
'At the same time,' said Mr. Semple, 'I must tell you that I mean to
ask you a great many questions, and tell you very little in return--at
least for the present. In the first place, it is all-important that we
should know when Mrs. Ogilvie's elder boy died.'
'And I,' said Lady Falconer hopelessly, 'did not even know until the
other day that she had had another boy.'
'And yet,' said the lawyer, 'however slight the chain of evidence is,
we must follow it closely. You are probably the person who saw Mrs.
Ogilvie first after the death of the child.'
'That I can hardly believe,' protested Lady Falconer. 'It seems to me
that, however reserved a woman might be, she would still let another
woman know about so intimate a trouble.'
'Mrs. Ogilvie was a very unusual woman,' said Mr. Semple.
'But even so----' began Lady Falconer.
'Even so,' repeated the lawyer, 'my friend Peter and his talkative
neighbour will soon be back again, and I must examine my witness before
they return.'
'But a witness,' exclaimed Lady Falconer, 'whose evidence is based on
the only-half-intelligible gossip of a Spanish serving-woman made
twenty-five years ago, and a week spent in an out-of-the-way
mountain-village where she was ill nearly the whole time!'
Mr. Semple waved aside protests. 'Do forgive me for bothering you,' he
said, 'and try to remember positively if there were any friends or
neighbours who came about the house of whom we could perhaps ask
tidings?'
'I am sure there were none,' said Lady Falconer. 'The charm of the
place to Mrs. Ogilvie was, I know, its solitude, just as was its charm
for us also.'
'No English people?'
'None, I am quite sure.'
'You have no idea who those friends were to whom Mrs. Ogilvie had
lately said good-bye, and who were starting on a voyage?'
'I think,' said Lady Falconer slowly, 'it was because the storm blew so
loudly that we spoke of them; and, yes, I am sure the woman crossed
herself and prayed for those at sea.'
She hesitated, and Mr. Semple giving her a quick glance said, 'I am
only asking for a woman's impression.'
'And at this length of time I cannot even tell you how I came to have
this impression,' she replied, 'and yet the picture remains in my mind
that these people, whoever they were, were sailing from Lisbon. The
maid who waited upon me had evidently been engaged in Lisbon.'
Peter and Mr. Lawrence were heard in the hall outside, and the
motor-car was at the door.
'Thank you very much,' said the lawyer, as the door opened.
Mr. Semple left the following morning, and did not return until the end
of the week. He was a contented man, and made an excellent companion,
and Peter enjoyed seeing him again and having his companionship at
dinner on the night of his return. He was always interested in
something, and quite disposed to take a book and remain quiet when his
client was busy or disinclined for conversation. He and Peter smoked
in silence for a considerable time after the servants had left the
room, and even when an adjournment had been made to the library the
lawyer, who was possibly tired after his journey, sat quietly in a
leather armchair by the fire without saying anything.
Peter began to talk about the small items of news of the neighbourhood.
'The Falconers have left,' he said. 'I wonder what they found to amuse
them at Lawrence's place?'
'Lawrence himself, perhaps,' said Mr. Semple dryly.
'But Lady Falconer does not even laugh at people,' replied Peter. 'I
thought her a very charming woman.'
'She is a very charming woman,' replied Mr. Semple, 'and she used to
know your mother long ago in Spain.'
Peter took his cigar out of his mouth, and turned interrogatively
towards the lawyer. 'I don't suppose she was able to tell you
anything?' he said, with a sharp note of interest in his voice.
'She was able to tell me nothing,' said Mr. Semple, 'except a woman's
impression of a conversation she had with a Spanish serving-woman.'
'I should like to hear all she had to say,' said Peter briefly.
'Ships sailing for Argentine stop at Lisbon and take up passengers
there,' said Mr. Semple. 'I have been to Lisbon since I last saw you.
Mrs. Ogilvie paid the passage-money for a married couple and a child
who sailed from that place in December of the year in which your
brother is said to have died.'