le sunk together, as in weariness or dejection upon the
stone bench. His eyes blazed fierce, for once, with questions he burned
yet dreaded to ask. But on second thoughts--they arrived to him
swiftly--he restrained his impatience and his tongue. Mastering his heat
he looked down at the sheet of note-paper again. He would obey Damaris,
absorb the contents of this extraordinary document, the facts it conveyed
both explicitly and implicitly, to the last word before he spoke.

Happily the remaining words were few. "Your brother," he read, "till
death and after"--followed by a name and date.

At the name he stared fairly confounded. It meant nothing whatever to
him.--That is, at first. Then, rising as a vision from out some
subconscious drift of memory, he saw the cold, low-toned colouring of
wide, smooth and lonely waters, of salt-marsh, of mud-flat and reed-bed
in the lowering light of a late autumn afternoon--a grey, stone-built
tavern, moreover, above the open door of which, painted upon a board,
that same name of Faircloth figured above information concerning divers
liquors obtainable within. Yes--remembrance grew more precise and stable.
He recalled the circumstances quite clearly now. He had seen it on his
way back from a solitary afternoon's wild fowl shooting on Marychurch
Haven; during his last visit to Deadham Hard.

So much was certain. But the name in its present connection? Carteret's
imagination shied. For, to have the existence of an illegitimate son of
your oldest and dearest friend thus suddenly thrust upon you, and that by
a young lady of the dearest friend's family, is, to say the least of it,
a considerable poser for any man. It may be noted as characteristic of
Carteret that, without hesitation, he recognized the sincerity and fine
spirit of Faircloth's letter. Characteristic, also, that having seized
the main bearings of it, his feeling was neither of cynical acquiescence,
or of covert and cynical amusement; but of vicarious humiliation, of
apology and noble pitying shame.

He came over and sat down upon the stone bench beside Damaris.

"Dear witch," he said slowly, "this, if I apprehend it aright, is a
little staggering. Forgive me--I did altogether, and I am afraid rather
crassly, misunderstand. But that I could hardly help, since no remotest
hint of this matter has ever reached me until now."

Damaris let her hand drop, palm upwards, upon the cool, slightly rough,
surface of the seat. Carteret