y, but there was an indefinite something in their manner and
bearing which Wyllard, who had read a great deal, recognized, though he
had never been brought into actual contact with it until then. He felt
that he could not have expected to come across such people anywhere but
in England, unless it was at the headquarters of a British battalion in
India.

He told his story tersely, softening unpleasant details and making
little of what he had done. The gray-haired man listened gravely with an
unmoved face, though a trace of moisture crept into the little lady's
eyes. There was silence for a moment or two when he had finished, and
then Major Radcliffe, whose manner was very quiet, turned to him.

"You have laid me under an obligation, which I could never wipe out,
even if I wished it," he said. "It was my only son you buried out there
in Canada."

He broke off for a moment, and his quietness was more marked than ever
when he went on again.

"As you have no doubt surmised, we quarreled," he said. "He was
extravagant and careless--at least I thought that then--but now it seems
to me that I was unduly hard on him. His mother"--and he turned to the
little lady with an inclination that pleased Wyllard curiously--"was
sure of it at the time. In any case, I took the wrong way, and he went
out to Canada. I made that, at least, easy for him--and I have been
sorry ever since."

He paused again with a little expressive gesture. "It seems due to him,
and you, that I should tell you this. When no word reached us I had
inquiries made, through a banker, who, discovering that he had
registered at a hotel as Pattinson, at length traced him to a British
Columbian silver mine. He had, however, left the mine shortly before my
correspondent learned that he had been employed there, and all that the
banker could tell me was that an unknown prospector had nursed my boy
until he died."

Wyllard took out a watch and the clasp of a workman's belt from his
pocket, and laid them gently on Mrs. Radcliffe's knee. He saw her eyes
fill, and turned his head away.

"I feel that you may blame me for not writing sooner, but it was only a
very little while ago that I was able to trace you, and then it was only
by a very curious--coincidence," he explained presently.

He did not consider it advisable to mention the photograph. It seemed to
him that the girl would not like it. Nor, though he was greatly tempted,
did he care to make inquiries concerning