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 drowned when he was only a year old. He was my grandfather." Again he looked at her sharply. "Olivia, you must tell me the truth. Why did you ask me that question?"

Again she hesitated, saying, "I don't know . . . it seemed to me. . . ."

"Did you find something? Did she," he asked, making the gesture toward the north wing, "did she tell you anything?"

She understood then that he, marvelous old man, must even know about the letters. "Yes," she said in a low voice, "I found something . . . in the attic."

He sighed and looked away again, across the wet meadows. "So you know, too. . . . She found them first, and hid them away again. She wouldn't give them to me because she hated me . . . from our wedding-night. I've told you about that. And then she couldn't remember where she'd hid them . . . poor thing. But she told me about them. At times she used to taunt me by saying that I wasn't a Pentland at all. I think the thing made her mind darker than it was before. She had some terrible idea about the sin in my family for which she must atone. . . ."

"It's true," said Olivia softly. "There's no doubt of it. It was written by Toby Cane himself . . . in his own handwriting. I've compared it with the letters Anson has of his." After a moment she asked, "And you . . . you've known it always?"

"Always," he said sadly. "It explains many things. . . . Sometimes I think that those of us who have lived since have had to atone for their sin. It's all worked out in a harsh way, when you come to think of it. . . ."

She guessed what it was he meant. She saw again that he believed in such a thing as sin, that the belief in it was rooted deeply in his whole being.

"Have you got the letters, Olivia?" he asked.

"No . . . I burned them . . . last night . . . because I