and smiling in irony. For it had a face, now, the face
of John Prather! How was he connected with the story of the mother? the
father? the Doge?

Then, like a shaft of light across memory, came the recollection of a
thing that had been so negligible to Jack at the time. It was Dr.
Bennington's first question in Jack's living-room; a question so
carelessly put and so dissociated from the object of his visit! Jack
remembered Dr. Bennington's curious glance through his eyebrows as he
asked him if he had met John Prather. And Dr. Bennington had brought Jack
into the world! He knew the family history! The Jack that now rose from
the chair was a Jack of action, driven by the scourge of John Prather's
smile into obsession with the one idea which was crying: "I will know! I
will know!"

Downstairs in the hall he learned over the telephone that Dr. Bennington
had just gone out on a call. It would be possible to see him yet
to-night! An hour later, as the doctor entered his reception-room he was
startled by a pacing figure in the throes of impatience, who turned on
him without formality in an outburst:

"Dr. Bennington, you asked me in Little Rivers if I had ever met John
Prather. I have met him! Who is he? What is he to me?"

The doctor's suavity was thrown off its balance, but he did not lose
his presence of mind. He was too old a hand at his profession, too
capable, for that.

"I refuse to answer!" he said quickly and decisively.

"Then you do know!" Jack took a step toward the doctor. His weight was on
the ball of his foot; his eyes had the fire of a command that was not to
be resisted.

"Heavens! How like the ancestor!" the doctor exclaimed involuntarily.

"Then you do know! Who is he? What is he to me?"

It seemed as if the ceiling were about to crack. The doctor looked away
to avoid the bore of Jack's unrelenting scrutiny. He took a turn up and
down, rapidly, nervously, his fingers pressed in against the palms and
the muscles of his forearms moving in the way of one who is trying to
hold himself in control by an outward expression of force against inward
rebellion.

"I dined with your father to-night!" he exclaimed. "I counseled him to
tell you the truth! I said that if he did not want to tell it for its own
sake, as policy it was the only thing to you! I--I--" he stopped, facing
Jack with a sort of grisly defiance. "Jack, a doctor is a confessor of
men! He keeps their secrets! Good-night!" And he strode throug