ings were so confoundedly cold. So he often stayed
at home and read a book.

He paused in the midst of a scientific definition and looked up with
listening eyes. He had got into the way of listening to the passing
wheels. Lady Cantourne sometimes called for him on her way to a
festivity, but it was not that.

The wheels he heard had stopped--perhaps it was Lady Cantourne. But he
did not think so. She drove behind a pair, and this was not a pair. It
was wonderful how well he could detect the difference, considering the
age of his ears.

A few minutes later the butler silently threw open the door, and Jack
stood in the threshold. Sir John Meredith's son had been given back to
him from the gates of death.

The son, like the father, was in immaculate evening dress. There was a
very subtle cynicism in the thought of turning aside on such a return
as this to dress--to tie a careful white tie and brush imperceptibly
ruffled hair.

There was a little pause, and the two tall men stood, half-bowing with
a marvellous similarity of attitude, gazing steadily into each other's
eyes. And one cannot help wondering whether it was a mere accident that
Jack Meredith stood motionless on the threshold until his father said:

"Come in."

"Graves," he continued to the butler, with that pride of keeping up
before all the world which was his, "bring up coffee. You will take
coffee?" to his son while they shook hands.

"Thanks, yes."

The butler closed the door behind him. Sir John was holding on to the
back of his high chair in rather a constrained way--almost as if he
were suffering pain. They looked at each other again, and there was
a resemblance in the very manner of raising the eyelid. There was a
stronger resemblance in the grim waiting silence which neither of them
would break.

At last Jack spoke, approaching the fire and looking into it.

"You must excuse my taking you by surprise at this--unusual hour." He
turned; saw the lamp, the book, and the eyeglasses--more especially the
eyeglasses, which seemed to break the train of his thoughts. "I
only landed at Liverpool this afternoon," he went on, with hopeless
politeness. "I did not trouble you with a telegram, knowing that you
object to them."

The old man bowed gravely.

"I am always glad to see you," he said suavely. "Will you not sit down?"

And they had begun wrong. It is probable that neither of them had
intended this. Both had probably dreamed of a very different