"
"Yes! Ten years ago.
"Your mother, I think, lived for only a few months after your father
left England. You found a guardian in Mr. Ascough of Lincoln's Inn
Fields. There my knowledge of your history ceases.
"How do you know these things?" Brooks asked.
"I was with your father when he died. It was I who wrote to you and
sent his effects to England."
"You were there--in Canada?"
"Yes. I had a dwelling within a dozen miles of where your father had
built his hut by the side of the great lake. He was the only other
Englishman within a hundred miles. So I was with him often."
"It is wonderful--after all these years," Brooks exclaimed. "You were
there for sport, of course?"
"For sport!" his visitor repeated in a colourless tone.
"But my father--what led him there? Why did he cut himself off from
every one, send no word home, creep away into that lone country to die
by himself? It is horrible to think of."
"Your father was not a communicative man. He spoke of his illness. I
always considered him as a person mentally shattered. He spent his days
alone, looking out across the lake or wandering in the woods.
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