young Erroll, "I've heard a good deal about it.
Everybody has, you know."

"Well, I _don't_ know," retorted Austin Gerard irritably, "what
'everybody' has heard, but I suppose it's the usual garbled version made
up of distorted fact and malicious gossip. That's why I sent for you.
Sit down."

Gerald Erroll seated himself on the edge of the big, polished table in
Austin's private office, one leg swinging, an unlighted cigarette
between his lips.

Austin Gerard, his late guardian, big, florid, with that peculiar blue
eye which seems to characterise hasty temper, stood by the window,
tossing up and catching the glittering gold piece--souvenir of the
directors' meeting which he had just left.

"What has happened," he said, "is this. Captain Selwyn is back in
town--sent up his card to me, but they told him I was attending a
directors' meeting. When the meeting was over I found his card and a
message scribbled, saying he'd recently landed and was going uptown to
call on Nina. She'll keep him there, of course, until I get home, so I
shall see him this evening. Now, before you meet him, I want you to
plainly understand the truth about this unfortunate affair; and that's
why I telephoned your gimlet-eyed friend Neergard just now to let you
come around here for half an hour."

The boy nodded and, drawing a gold matchbox from his waistcoat pocket,
lighted his cigarette.

"Why the devil don't you smoke cigars?" growled Austin, more to himself
than to Gerald; then, pocketing the gold piece, seated himself heavily
in his big leather desk-chair.

"In the first place," he said, "Captain Selwyn is my
brother-in-law--which wouldn't make an atom of difference to me in my
judgment of what has happened if he had been at fault. But the facts of
the case are these." He held up an impressive forefinger and laid it
flat across the large, ruddy palm of the other hand. "First of all, he
married a cat! C-a-t, cat. Is that clear, Gerald?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good! What sort of a dance she led him out there in Manila, I've heard.
Never mind that, now. What I want you to know is how he behaved--with
what quiet dignity, steady patience, and sweet temper under constant
provocation and mortification, he conducted himself. Then that fellow
Ruthven turned up--and--Selwyn is above that sort of suspicion. Besides,
his scouts took the field within a week."

He dropped a heavy, highly coloured fist on his desk with a bang.

"After that hike, Selwyn