Captain Clubbe told also how Frenchman, for so he continued to be called long after his real name had been written twice in the parish register, had soon after his marriage destroyed the papers carefully preserved by the woman whom he never called mother, though she herself claimed that title.
She had supported herself, it appeared, by her needle, and never seemed to want money, which led the villagers to conclude that she had some secret store upon which to draw when in need.

She had received letters from France, which were carefully treasured by her until her death, and for long afterward by Frenchman, who finally burnt all at his marriage, saying that he was now an Englishman and wanted to retain no ties with France.

At this time, Clubbe remembered, Louis XVIII.

was firmly established on the throne of France, the Restoration--known as the Second--having been brought about by the Allied Powers with a high hand after the Hundred Days and the final downfall of Napoleon.
Frenchman may well have known that it might be worth his while to return to France and seek fortune there; but he never spoke of this knowledge nor made reference to the recollections of his childhood, which cast a cold reserve over his soul and steeped it with such a deadly hatred of France and all things French, that he desired to sever all memories that might link him with his native country or awake in the hearts of any children he should beget the desire to return thither.
A year after his marriage his wife died, and thus her son, left to the care of a lonely and misanthropic father, was brought up a Frenchman after all, and lisped his first words in that tongue.
"He lived long enough to teach him to speak French and think like a Frenchman, and then he died," said Captain Clubbe--"a young man reckoning by years, but in mind he was an older man than I am to-day." "And his secret died with him ?" suggested Dormer Colville, looking at the end of his cigar with a queer smile.

But Captain Clubbe made no answer.
"One may suppose that he wanted it to die with him, at all events," added Colville, tentatively.
"You are right," was the reply, a local colloquialism in common use, as a clincher to a closed argument or an unwelcome truth.