old man. "I try to do my
duty." And with another wistful glance at Violet, who looked very sweet
and youthful in the half-light, he pottered away.

The silence which followed his departure was as painful to her as to
Roger Upjohn. When she broke it it was with this decisive remark:

"That man must not speak of me to your father. He must not even mention
that you have a guest to-night. Run after him and tell him so. It is
necessary that your father's mind should not be taken up with present
happenings. Run."

Roger made haste to obey her. When he came back she was on the point of
joining her brother but stopped to utter a final injunction:

"I shall leave the library, or wherever we may be sitting, just as the
clock strikes half-past eight. Arthur will do the same, as by that time
he will feel like smoking on the terrace. Do not follow either him or
myself, but take your stand here on the piazza where you can get a
full view of the right-hand wing without attracting any attention to
yourself. When you hear the big clock in the hall strike nine, look up
quickly at your father's window. What you see may determine--oh, Arthur!
still admiring the prospect? I do not wonder. But I find it chilly. Let
us go in."

Roger Upjohn, sitting by himself in the library, was watching the hands
of the mantel clock slowly approaching the hour of nine.

Never had silence seemed more oppressive nor his sense of loneliness
greater. Yet the boom of the ocean was distinct to the ear, and human
presence no farther away than the terrace where Arthur Strange could be
seen smoking out his cigar in solitude. The silence and the loneliness
were in Roger's own soul; and, in face of the expected revelation
which would make or unmake his future, the desolation they wrought was
measureless.

To cut his suspense short, he rose at length and hurried out to the spot
designated by Miss Strange as the best point from which to keep watch
upon his father's window. It was at the end of the piazza where the
honeysuckle hung, and the odour of the blossoms, so pleasing to his
father, well-nigh overpowered him not only by its sweetness but by the
many memories it called up. Visions of that father as he looked at all
stages of their relationship passed in a bewildering maze before him.
He saw him as he appeared to his childish eyes in those early days of
confidence when the loss of the mother cast them in mutual dependence
upon each other. Then a sterner pic