us, eh? I know he is at last."

"In two years. He has promised to come home in two years."

Rufus Blight sat down in his old chair and stared at me. "In two
years? Why, David, we need him now. He must come now. We will bring
him home--you and I."

"But we can't," said I. "He is far from here now; he went away last
winter."

"You saw him and did not bring him home!" Rufus Blight's voice rose to
a pitch of indignation. "I don't understand. Did you tell him how we
wanted him--Penelope and I--how we had searched for him everywhere?" I
nodded. "You told him that and he would not come?" He leaned toward
me angrily. "Well, why didn't you let me know about him?"

"Because it could have done no good," I answered. "I had to promise
him that I would not, yet because he feared that I should break my
promise, he slipped away. I saw him but once. When I went to see him
again he was gone--to Argentina."

"I see," said Rufus Blight more gently. "You must pardon my losing my
temper, but it was hard to think that he was near us and yet we never
knew it; strange that you did not tell us of it earlier."

"I should not tell you now were there not certain circumstances
connected with my meeting with your brother that it is best that you
know," I returned.

I went on with my story very quietly, as if it were one in which I had
little personal concern. I knew that Rufus Blight was not quick to
catch the hidden meaning of a word or tone, so that it was not from any
fear of him discovering my biassed mind that I made my statement so
unimpassioned. It was because I wanted to satisfy myself that I was
acting alone for Penelope's good and disclosing the truth, uncolored,
for her to judge. Slowly I told it all, in a dry, unvarnished sequence
of facts. I told him of my visit to O'Corrigan's; of the fight and my
interference; of my hours with his brother and his account of his
wanderings and trials; of my vain plea to bring him back to Penelope
and his refusal to surrender his search for that chimerical prize for
which he had struggled so futilely. To me the vital part of my story
had to do with Herbert Talcott. But for its apparent effect on Rufus
Blight I had as well discovered his brother thrashing Tom Marshall. To
him that incident was trivial. What he wanted to know was how
Henderson looked. Was he well? Was he in absolute poverty? Did he
speak as though he really meant to come home in two years? When I had