But two years later this same Canadian acquaintance, remembering my inquiry, wrote to say that the old man I had once asked about had just died, but that his widow was still living at their little farm and getting along as well as could be expected.
Then one day as the old Squire and I were driving home from a grange meeting I told him what I had learned five years before concerning the fate of his old friend.

It was news to him, and yet he did not appear to be wholly surprised.
"I don't know, sir, whether I have done right or not, keeping this from you so long," I said after a moment of silence.
"I think you did perfectly right," the old Squire said after a pause.
"You did what I myself, I am sure, would have done under the circumstances." "Shall you tell grandmother Ruth ?" I asked.
The old Squire considered it for several moments before he ventured to speak again.

At last he lifted his head.
"On the whole I think it will be better if we do not," he replied.

"It will give her a great shock, particularly Jonathan's second marriage up there in Canada.

His disappearance has now largely faded from her mind.
It is best so.
"Not that I justify it," he continued.