home."

"Peter is handsomer than he was, in spite of the lines, and, as you
say, he does look more like his cousin than he used to--because of
them, I think. Richard always had a debonair way with him, but he had
that little, sensitive droop to the lips--not so marked as Peter's is
now--but you remember, Mary--like his mother's."

"Oh, mother, don't you think Richard could be found?" Betty's voice
trailed sorrowfully over the words. She was thinking how he had
suffered all this time, and wishing her heart could reach out to him
and call him back to her.

"He must be, dear, if he lives."

"Oh, yes. He'll be found. It can be published that Peter Junior has
returned, and that will bring him after a while. Peter's physique
seems to have changed as well as his face. Did you notice that
backward swing of the shoulders, so like his cousin's, when he said,
'I could sing and shout here in this cell'? And the way he lifted his
head and smiled? That beard is a horrible disguise. I must send a
barber to him. He must be himself again."

"Oh, yes, do. He stands so straight and steps so easily. His lameness
seems to have quite gone," said Mary, joyously,--but at that, Bertrand
paused in his walk and looked at her, then glancing at Betty walking
slowly on before, he laid his finger to his lips and took his wife's
arm, and they said no more until they reached home and Betty was in
her room.

"I simply can't think it, Bertrand. I see Peter in him. It is Peter.
Of course he's like Richard. They were always alike, and that makes
him all the more Peter. No other man would have that likeness, and it
goes to show that he is Peter."

"My dear, unless the Elder sees him as we see him, the thing will have
to be tried out in the courts."

"Unless we can find Richard. Hester ought to be here. She could set
them right in a moment. Trust a mother to know her own boy. I'll write
her immediately. I'll--"

"But you have no authority, Mary."

"No authority? She is my friend. I have a right to do my duty by her,
and I can so put it that it will not be such a shock to her as it
inevitably will be if matters go wrong, or Peter should be kept in
prison for lack of evidence--or for too much evidence. She'll have to
know sooner or later."

Bertrand said no more against this, for was not Mary often quite
right? "I'll see to it that he has a barber, and try to persuade the
Elder to see him. That may settle it without any trouble. If not, I
must