in
an assured manner for Colonel Gainsborough.

'Yes, sir, he's in,' said Barker doubtfully; as he stood in the doorway
she could not see the visitor well. 'Who will I say wants to see him,
sir?'

'A gentleman on business.'

Another minute or two, and Pitt stood in the small room which was the
colonel's particular room, and was face to face with his old friend.
Esther was not there; and without looking at anything Pitt felt in a
moment the change that must have come over the fortunes of the family.
The place was so small! There did not seem to be room in it for the
colonel and him. But the colonel was like himself. They stood and faced
each other.

'Have I changed so much, colonel?' he said at last. 'Do you not know
me?'

'William Dallas?' said the colonel. 'I know the voice! But yes, you
have changed,--you have changed, certainly. It is the difference
between the boy and the man. What else it is, I cannot see in this
light,--or this darkness. It grows dark early in this room. Sit down.
So you have got back at last!'

The greeting was not very cordial, Pitt felt.

'I have come back, for a time; but I have been home repeatedly before
this.'

'So I suppose,' said the colonel drily. 'Of course, hearing nothing of
you, I could not be sure how it was.'

'I have looked for you, sir, every time, and almost everywhere.'

'Looked for us? Ha! It is not very difficult to find anybody, when you
know where to look.'

'Pardon me, Colonel Gainsborough, that was precisely not my case. I did
not know where to look. I have been here for days now, looking, till I
was almost in despair; only I knew you must be somewhere, and I would
not despair. I have looked for you in America and in England. I went
down to Gainsborough Manor, to see if I could hear tidings of you
there. Every time that I came home to Seaforth for a visit I took a
week of my vacation and came here and hunted New York for you; always
in vain.'

'The shortest way would have been to ask your father,' said the
colonel, still drily.

'My father? I asked him, and he could tell me nothing. Why did you not
leave us some clue by which to find you?'

'Clue?' said the colonel. 'What do you mean by clue? I have not hid
myself.'

'But if your friends do not know where you are?'

'Your father could have told you.'

'He did not know your address, sir. I asked him for it repeatedly.'

'Why did he not give it to you?' said the colonel, throwing up his head
like