ttoned close up under his chin, his hat drawn
tight down over his forehead. His weather-beaten face, as the light
fell upon it, looked cracked and drawn, with dark hollows under the
eyes, which the shadows from the lamplight deepened.

"It's late, I know, doctor," he said in a hoarse, strained voice; "ten
o'clock, maybe, but I got somethin' to talk to ye about," and he strode
into the room. "Alone, are ye?" he continued, as he loosened his coat
and laid his hat on the desk. "Where's the good mother? Home, is she?"

"Yes, she's inside," answered the doctor, pointing to the open door
leading to the salon and grasping the captain's brawny hand in welcome.
"Why? Do you want to see her?"

"No, I don't want to see her; don't want to see nobody but you. She
can't hear, can she? 'Scuse me--I'll close this door."

The doctor looked at him curiously. The captain seemed to be laboring
under a nervous strain, unusual in one so stolid and self-possessed.

The door closed, the captain moved back a cushion, dropped into a
corner of the sofa, and sat looking at the doctor, with legs apart, his
open palms resting on his knees.

"I got bad news, doctor--awful bad news for everybody," as he spoke he
reached into his pocket and produced a letter with a foreign postmark.

"You remember my son Bart, of course, don't ye, who left home some two
years ago?" he went on.

The doctor nodded.

"Well, he's dead."

"Your son Bart dead!" cried the doctor, repeating his name in the
surprise of the announcement. "How do you know?"

"This letter came by to-day's mail. It's from the consul at Rio. Bart
come in to see him dead broke and he helped him out. He'd run away from
the ship and was goin' up into the mines to work, so the consul wrote
me. He was in once after that and got a little money, and then he got
down with yellow fever and they took him to the hospital, and he died
in three days. There ain't no doubt about it. Here's a list of the dead
in the paper; you kin read his name plain as print."

Doctor John reached for the letter and newspaper clipping and turned
them toward the lamp. The envelope was stamped "Rio Janeiro" and the
letter bore the official heading of the consulate.

"That's dreadful, dreadful news, captain," said the doctor in
sympathetic tones. "Poor boy! it's too bad. Perhaps, however, there may
be some mistake, after all. Foreign hospital registers are not always
reliable," added the doctor in a hopeful tone.

"N