arten listening to the
band when a Hiedelberg student, with his face all seamed and slashed,
walked past us.'

'I know; students in Germany are proud of those duelling scars. Well,
Gabriel, and what then?'

The curate quivered all over, and instead of replying directly, asked
what seemed to be an irrelevant question. 'Did you know that my mother
was a widow when my father married her?' he demanded in low tones.

'Of course I did,' replied Graham, cheerily. 'I was practising in
Marylebone then, and your father was vicar of St Benedict's. Why, I was
at his wedding, Gabriel, and very pretty your mother looked. She was a
Mrs Krant, whose husband had been killed while serving as a volunteer in
the Franco-Prussian War!'

'Did you ever see her husband?'

'No; she did not come to Marylebone until he had left her. The rascal
deserted the poor young thing and went abroad to fight. But why do you
ask all these questions? They cannot but be painful.' 'Because the
sight of that student's face recalled her first husband to my mother.
She said that Krant had a long scar on the right cheek. I immediately
thought of Jentham.'

'Good God!' cried Graham, pushing back his chair. 'What do you mean,
lad?'

'Wait! wait!' said Gabriel, feverishly. 'I asked my mother to describe
the features of her first husband. Not suspecting my reason for asking,
she did so. Krant, she said, was tall, lean, swart and black-eyed, with
a scar on the right cheek running from the ear to the mouth. Doctor!'
cried Gabriel, clutching Graham's hand, 'that is the very portrait of
the man Jentham.'

'Gabriel!' whispered the little doctor, hoarsely, 'do you mean to say--'

'I mean to say that Krant did not die, that Jentham was Krant, and that
when he called on my father he appeared as one from the dead. He is dead
now, but he was alive when my mother became my father's wife.'

'Impossible! Impossible!' repeated Graham, who was ashy pale, and shaken
out of his ordinary self. 'Krant died--died at Sedan. Your father went
over and saw his grave!'

'He did not see the corpse, though. I tell you I am right, doctor. Krant
did not die. My mother is not my father's wife, and we--we--George, Lucy
and myself are in the eyes of the law--nobody's children.' The curate
uttered these last words almost in a shriek, and fell back on the couch,
covering his face with two trembling hands.

Graham sat staring straight before him with an expression of absolute
horror on hi