Palethorpe!"

"Miss Palethorpe!" he exclaimed, grasping the hand she held out. "Is it
possible?"

"Not Miss Palethorpe," she said. "To you I am Alice, as I was nearly four
years ago. Get into the carriage. My father will be delighted to see you.
We have talked of you so often. He made enquiries at the Admiralty when he
came home, but found that you were a prisoner in France, and he has been
trying to get your name down in the list of those to be exchanged, but he
had so little interest that he could not succeed, and, indeed, for the
past two years no exchange had taken place."

By this time he was in the carriage, and they were driving rapidly along
the busy streets. Presently they stopped before a large house in Bedford
Square.

"This is our home, for the present at any rate," she said. "Now come in."

She ran upstairs before him and signed to him to wait at the top.
"Father," she said, bursting into a room, "I have taken a captive; someone
you certainly don't expect to see. Now, you must guess."

"How can I, my dear, when you say I don't expect to see him? Is it--?" and
he mentioned five or six of his friends in Jamaica, any of whom might be
returning.

"No, father. You are out altogether."

"Then I give it up, Alice."

"It is Will," she said.

Will heard him spring to his feet and hurry to the door.

"My dear young friend!" he exclaimed. "At least I suppose it is you, for
you have grown out of all recognition."

"Ah, father!" the girl broke in. "You see, he hadn't changed so much as to
deceive me. I felt sure of him the moment I set eyes upon him."

"Well, then, your eyes do you credit," her father said. "Certainly I
should not have recognized him. He has grown from a lad into a man since
we saw him last. He has widened out tremendously. He was rather one of the
lean kind at that time."

"Oh, father, how can you say so? I consider that he was just right."

"Yes, my dear, I quite understand that. At that time he was perfect in
your eyes, but for all that he was lean."

"You are quite right, sir, I was, and I really wonder that I have put on
flesh so much. The diet of a French prisoner is not calculated to promote
stoutness. But your daughter was not only sharper-sighted than you, but
even than myself. Till she spoke to me I had not an idea who she was. I
saw that she thought she recognized me, but I was afraid it would be rude
on my part to look at her closely. Of course now I do see the likeness to