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Rh obtain the information elsewhere; but I should not at this stage of the game care to have the press get hold of the fact that such inquiries were being instituted."

"I should hope not!" Titheredge exclaimed fervently. "You horrify me! I don't know why you should have entertained such a thought, nor who could have suggested it to you; but I can assure you most solemnly that no insanity has manifested itself in the family in this or the last generation."

"But before that?" Odell had sensed the mental reservation. "In what branch of the family was there insanity, Mr. Titheredge?"

"You haven't heard, then, about old Joshua P. Meade?" The attorney had lowered his tones, and he glanced over his shoulder as if fearful of an eavesdropper. "He was the father of Mrs. Lorne and Miss Effie, you know; the children's grandfather. They have never been told, although their mother and aunt knew; and the secret was carefully kept from the world. The old gentleman was always considered eccentric, and possessed of an ungovernable temper; and in his later years it was given out that he had suffered a stroke and become a chronic invalid. He was kept in strict seclusion, and in that seclusion he finally died."

"He had lost his mind?"

"Yes. Not gradually; nor could age nor any mental strain account for it. He became suddenly violent, a raving maniac in fact, and was kept in a room up on the top floor here for seven years. Every effort was made to effect a cure, and the best specialists and alienists were consulted; but with no result. However, he has been dead these many years, and, thank God, no trace of his terrible malady has