Well, things went on quietly enough for another month, and on the last night of the old year the place was snowed up--tracks, roads, everything--and at midnight an old man came about who answered to the description I had of the dead man, clothes and all, for it seems they were burying him in his clothes.
He was rather deaf, and blind I think, though I'm not sure, and he seemed to be wandering in his mind somehow; but he was a fine, powerful fellow--reminded me a little of father--and the pathetic thing about it was that he had got the idea into his head--" Here Alec stopped, and, holding the pen idly in his hand, sat lost in thought.

So wistful did he look, so wrapt, that Bates, glancing furtively at him, thought the letter had raised associations of his home and childhood, and took himself off to bed, hoping that the letter would be more brotherly if the writer was left alone.

But when Alec put pen to paper again he only wrote:-- "Well, I don't know that it matters what he had got into his head; it hadn't anything to do with whether he was Cameron (the name of the man supposed dead) or not.

I could not get a word out of him as to who he was or where he came from.

I did all I could to get him to come in and have food and get warmed; but though I went after him and stood with him a long while, I didn't succeed.