truck down upon his tired face as though seeking out him alone
of all that slept in the house. A lusty figure of shapely youth, a
handsome face which the finger of the World had touched already, these
the light revealed. He slept upon his back, his head turned toward the
light, his arm outstretched and almost touching the floor.

Gessner stood very still, afraid to wake the sleeper and by him to be
thus discovered. No good nationalist at any time, he had always admired
that product of a hard-drinking, hard-fighting ancestry, the British
boy; and in Alban it seemed to him that he discovered an excellent type.
Undoubtedly the lad was both handsome and strong. For his brains, Silas
Geary would answer, and he had given evidence of good wit in their brief
encounter last night. Gessner drew a step nearer and asked himself again
if the detective's reports were true. Was this the friend of vagabonds,
the companion of sluts--this clean-limbed, virile fellow with the fair
face and the flaxen curls and the head of a thinker and a sage? A judge
of men himself, he said that the words were a lie, and then he
remembered Boriskoff's account, the story of a father who had died to
serve an East End Mission, and of a devoted mother worsted in her youth
by those gathering hosts of poverty she had set out so bravely to
combat. Could the son of such as these be all that swift espionage would
have him? Gessner did not believe it. New hopes, as upon a great freshet
of content, came to him to give him comfort. He had no son. Let this lad
be the son whom he had desired so ardently. Let them live together, work
together in a mutual affection of gratitude and knowledge. Who could
prevail against such an alliance? What rancor of Boriskoff's would harm
the lad he desired to be the husband of his daughter. Aye, and this was
the supreme consolation--that if Alban would consent, he, Gessner, would
so earn his devotion and his love that therein he might arm himself
against all the world.

But would he consent? How if this old habit of change asserted itself
and took him back to the depths? Gessner breathed quickly when he
remembered that such might be the end of it. No law could compel the
boy, no guardian claim him. Twice already he had expressed in this house
his contempt for the riches which should have tempted him. Gessner began
to perceive that his fate depended upon a word. It must be "yes" or "no"
to-morrow--and while "yes" would save him, the co