From the first he had assiduously cultivated his acquaintance
with the new owners of the Barony. He was now on the best of
terms with Nat Ferris, and it was at the Barony that he lounged
away his evenings, gossiping and smoking with the planter on the
wide veranda.
"The Barony would have suited me," he told Bladen one day. They
had just returned from an excursion into the country and were
seated in the lawyer's office.
"You say your father was a friend of the old general's?" said
Bladen.
"Years ago, in the north--yes," answered Murrell.
"Odd, isn't it, the way he chose to spend the last years of his
life, shut off like that and seeing no one?"
Murrell regarded the lawyer in silence for a moment out of his
deeply sunk eyes.
"Too bad about the boy," he said at length slowly.
"How do you mean, Captain?" asked Bladen.
"I mean it's a pity he has no one except Yancy to look after
him," said Murrell, but Bladen showed no interest and Murrell
went on. "Don't you reckon he must have touched General
Quintard's life mighty close at some point?"
"Well, if so, it eluded me," said Bladen. "I went through
General Quintard's papers and they contained no clue to the boy's
identity that I could discover. Fact is, the general didn't
leave much beyond an old account-book or two; I imagine that
before his death he destroyed the bulk of his private papers; it
looked as if he'd wished to break with the past. His mind must
have been affected.
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