Samuel Hopkins Adams

“ Blair is not telling quite all that he knows. Nevertheless, the theory which he propounds as to his son’s assailant, is natural enough, from his point of view. Although,” added Kent thoughtfully, “it will be most unfortunate if it leads him to distrust Mrs. Blair.”
“Marjorie? Am I to infer that her good name is involved?” demanded the old man.
“Hardly her good name. Mr. Blair believes—if I correctly follow his mental processes—that Francis Sedgwick met his son on the night of the tragedy, by chance or otherwise, and that in the encounter which he believes followed, Wilfrid Blair was killed. ”

“ Sometimes I have thought that he had dim flashes of real clairvoyance. Be that as it may, he has a surprising clientele of which he makes the most, for he is a master-hand at cozening women out of their money. ”

“ Ah, well, I live among the dust and cobwebs of my own dim interests—and when I returned from one of my journeys into the past, I found that Marjorie was engaged to that wretched creature. Now, he is dead. Let be. I have seen little of her in late years. God grant the life with him has not crushed out of her all her sweetness and happiness.”
“While I am no judge of women,” said Kent judicially, “I should venture to aver that it hasn’t. ”

“ Society does her the justice to believe her faithful to him, and praises the devotion with which, since his breakdown and retirement, she has given up her world to devote herself to his care. Essentially the girl is Puritan in her concepts of duty.”
“Does she know anything of the manner of Blair’s death?”
“No one knows much of it, from what I understand, unless it be Alexander Blair. One of the family, who went to Hedgerow House for the funeral, called upon me, as a courtesy due to Mrs. Blair’s nearest relative. Alexander Blair, he said, was reticent; his dread of publicity is notorious. ”