ase of the statue he brought in his pagan
godlessness from Italy, and which his brother afterward buried,
wishing to remove all trace of him and his follies.

"You are to understand that it was the unwritten law of the Hyndses'
that this house should come to the eldest son. Primogeniture is of
course foreign to American ideas, but this is an old house, Miss
Smith. When it was built, American ideas hadn't been born. And the
Hyndses were a law to themselves.

"The then head of the house was James Hampden Hynds, a man of an
immense pride, a rigid sense of duty, and the nicest notions of
honor. He had two sons, Richard, and the younger brother, Freeman.
The daughters do not count: it is with these two sons we are
concerned.

"From every account Freeman Hynds was a good man, a quiet,
God-fearing, methodical man, attentive to his affairs, and
meticulously exact in all his dealings; not warm-hearted, perhaps,
but just. But as if the bad blood of the entire family had come to a
head in one man, Richard was born a roisterer and a spendthrift.

"He grew up a magnificent young scapegrace, reckless to the point of
madness, and with that inherent love of risk that is the very breath
of life to such men. Despite these defects there is no doubt that
his was one of those personalities that win love without effort. So
of course it was a foregone conclusion that he should win the girl
that his younger brother, among others, adored to distraction.

"His family hoped that his love for his young wife would change him
for the better. But there was something tamelessly wild in Richard
Hynds. He would have done very well, very well indeed, in the
_Golden Hind_ with Drake, or in the _Jesus_ with Morgan. He did not
fit in a gentler generation, and a mild life had no charm for him.
Gossip buzzed with his name, even in a day when gentlemen were
permitted to behave pretty much as they pleased.

"Up to this time there had never been anything altogether
unpardonable charged against him. But one fine morning the Hynds
jewels were missing. Remember that the Hyndses had always been a
wealthy and powerful family. The theft of those jewels was no
trumpery affair. For generations they had been adding to that
collection--sometimes a lustrous pearl, sometimes a flawless
emerald; once it was a sapphire that had belonged to a French queen,
once a pair of rubies that had hung in the ears of a duchess beloved
of King Charles.

"Richard's mother happene