he melancholy years, the atmosphere of the
mean streets, and the figure of little Lois Boriskoff asking both his
pity and his love.

CHAPTER XVII

FATHER AND DAUGHTER

Richard Gessner returned to Hampstead on the Friday in Ascot week and
upon the following morning Anna and Alban came back from Henley. They
said little of their adventures there, save to tell of quiet days upon
sunny waters; nor did the shrewdest questioning add one iota to the
tale. Indeed, Gessner's habitual curiosity appeared, for the time being,
to have deserted him, and they found him affable and good-humored almost
to the point of wonder.

It had been a very long time, as Anna declared, since anything of this
kind had shed light upon the commonly gloomy atmosphere of "Five
Gables." For weeks past Gessner had lived as a man who carried a secret
which he dared to confess to none. Night or day made no difference to
him. He lived apart, seeing many strangers in his study and rarely
visiting the great bank in Lombard Street where so many fortunes lay. To
Alban he was the same mysterious, occasionally gracious figure which had
first welcomed him to the magnificent hospitality of his house. There
were days when he appeared to throw all restraint aside and really to
desire this lad's affection as though he had been his own son--other
days when he shrank from him, afraid to speak lest he should name him
the author of his vast misfortunes. And now, as it were in an instant,
he had cast both restraint and fear aside, put on his ancient bonhomie
and given full rein to that natural affection of which he was very
capable. Even the servants remarked a change so welcome and so manifest.

Let it be written down as foreordained in the story of this unhappy
house, that in like measure as the father recovered his self-possession,
so, as swiftly, had the daughter journeyed to the confines of tragedy
and learned there some of those deeper lessons which the world is ever
ready to teach. Anna returned from Henley so greatly changed that her
altered appearance rarely escaped remark. Defiant, reckless, almost
hysterical, her unnatural gaiety could not cloak her anxiety nor all her
artifice disguise it. If she had told the truth, it would have been to
admit a position, not only of humiliation but of danger. A whim, by
which she would have amused herself, had created a situation from which
she could not escape. She loved Alban and had not won his love. The
subtle