nt assured him cheerfully. "Here is five dollars.
You can buy some food and things to cook with, and bring them with you.
Do you think there's a stove in the kitchen?"

"Ah reck'n," replied Uncle Jefferson. "En ef dar _ain'_ Daph kin cook er
Chris'mus dinnah wid fo' stones en er tin skillet. Yas, _suh_!"

He trudged away into the shadows, but presently, as the new master of
Damory Court stood in the gloomy hall, he heard the shambling step again
behind him. "Ah done neglectuated ter ax yo' name, suh. Ah did, fo' er
fac'."

"My name is Valiant. John Valiant."

Uncle Jefferson's eyes turned upward and rolled out of orbit. "Mah
Lawd!" he ejaculated soundlessly. And with his wide lips still framed
about the last word, he backed out of the doorway and disappeared.

CHAPTER XII

THE CASE OF MOROCCO LEATHER

Alone in the ebbing twilight, John Valiant found his hamper, spread a
napkin on the broad stone steps and took out a glass, a spoon and part
of a loaf of bread. The thermos flask was filled with milk. It was not a
splendid banquet, yet he ate it with as great content as the bulldog at
his feet gnawed his share of the crust. He broke his bread into the milk
as he had not done since he was a child, and ate the luscious pulp with
a keen relish bred of the long outdoor day. When the last drop was gone
he brushed up the very crumbs from the cloth, laughing to himself as he
did so. It had been a long time since he remembered being so hungry!

It was almost dark when the meal was done and, depleted hamper in hand,
he reentered the empty echoing house. He went into the library, lighted
the great brass lamp from the motor and began to rummage. The drawers of
the dining-room sideboard yielded nothing; on a shelf of the butler's
pantry, however, was a tin box which proved to be half full of wax
candles, perfectly preserved.

"The very thing!" he said triumphantly. Carrying them back, he fixed
several in the glass-candlesticks and set them, lighted, all about the
somber room till the soft glow flooded its every corner. "There," he
said, "that is as it should be. No big blatant search-light here! And no
glare of modern electricity would suit that old wainscoting, either." He
looked up at the painting on the wall; it seemed as if the sneer had
smoothed out, the hard cruel eye softened. "You needn't be afraid," he
said, nodding. "I understand."

He dragged the leather settee to the porch and by the light of the
motor-