speaking was that he was a brave, tender-hearted, truthful
fellow who, in the face of every temptation, had kept his word.
Moreover, it was never forgotten that he was Colonel Talbot Rutter's
only son and heir, so that no matter what the boy did, or how angry the
old autocrat might be, it could only be a question of time before his
father must send for him and everything at Moorlands go on as before.

It was on one of these glorious never-to-be-forgotten spring days, then,
a week or more after St. George had given up the fight with Kate--a day
which Harry remembered all the rest of his life--that he and his uncle
left the house to spend the afternoon, as was now their custom, at the
Chesapeake. The two had passed the early hours of the day at the Relay
House fishing for gudgeons, the dogs scampering the hills, and having
changed their clothes for something cooler, had entered the park by the
gate opposite the Temple Mansion, as being nearest to the club; a path
Harry loved, for he and Kate had often stepped it together--and then
again, it was the shortest cut to her house.

As the beauty and quiet of the place with its mottling of light and
shade took possession of him he slackened his pace, lagging a little
behind his uncle, and began to look about him, drinking in the
loveliness of the season. The very air breathed tenderness, peace, and
comfort. Certainly his father's heart must be softening toward him;
surely his bitterness could not last. No word, it is true, had yet come
to him from Moorlands, though only the week before his mother had
been in to see him, bringing him news of his father and what her son's
absence had meant to every one, old Alec especially. She had not, she
said, revived the subject of the boy's apology; she had thought it
better to wait for the proper opportunity, which might come any day,
but certain it was that his father was most unhappy, for he would shut
himself up hours at a time in his library, locking the door and refusing
to open it, no matter who knocked, except to old John Gorsuch, his man
of business. She had also heard him tossing on his bed at night, or
walking about his room muttering to himself.

Did these things, he wondered on this bright spring morning, mean a
final reconciliation, or was he, after all, to be doomed to further
disappointment? Days had passed since his mother had assured him of this
change in his father, and still no word had come from him. Had he at
last a