eached the age of four, I had been sent away to boarding-school.
After that, my life had been a succession of schools; first in France,
the adopted land of my father, then England, and finally St. Paul's in
America.

In all justice to my parent, I must admit he gave me every advantage
except the affection I would have cherished. By his own wish, I had
never seen him in life; nor would I see him in death, for a later cable
advised me that the funeral was over and his body already at rest in the
beautiful Gothic mausoleum he had had built in his lifetime, after the
manner of the ancients.

He had left me everything with only two injunctions, that a certain sum
of money be set aside to keep the chateau always in its present
condition and that I should spend at least half my time in it, and my
children after me--a condition I was only too pleased to accept. All my
life I had longed for a home.

I cabled at once that I would sail. A return cable brought me the news
that I had unlimited funds to draw upon. It was then that I urged
Wrexler to come with me.

* * * * *

Wrexler and I had been friends since the day when two lonely boys had
been put by chance into the same room at school. We were so utterly
unlike, it was perhaps the difference between us that held us together
through the years. At St. Paul's, and later at Princeton, Gordon Wrexler
had always been at the head of his class, whereas I inevitably tagged
along at the bottom. The contrast between us was expressed not only in
the color of our hair and eyes, but also in our dispositions. My
greatest gift from fate was a sense of humor, and I suppose it was this
quality of mine that particularly appealed to Wrexler. It seems as
though I was the only one who could lift him out of the despondency into
which he often plunged. As the years passed, and his tendency to
depression intensified, he came to depend more and more upon me, and we
grew closer together.

Strangely enough, the whiteness of his face and the gloom that exuded
from him did not detract from his good looks. It only added to them. For
the translucence of his skin made the thick, black hair that lay close
to his head all the darker, while at the same time it brought out the
deep black of his eyes, and the firm cut of his lips.

The night before we landed, we were standing on deck, at the rail,
looking over the side straining our eyes for the first glimpse of the
lights of