Fate and a marionette

Chapter I

The last moment, the end of anything, must inev¬ itably be written in minor.

We remember only the best—forgetting in the senti¬ ment-freighted moments of finality the heartaches, disappointments, ashes. The last hours in the most sordid of dwellings become invested with regret—re¬ grets for the brave hopes, the fires of enthusiasm, the evanescent hours of happiness, which its grim walls have encompassed.

So it was that Jerry Middleton looked about the dingy room of his insalubrious London lodging with the heartache of farewell. He had dreamed fair dreams there. He had stared at the dirty brown wall¬ paper and concocted courageous plans with the arro¬ gance of youth; he had warmed his soul with the flame of determination, as his body had shivered over the discouraged, unambitious, small fire in the tiny grate.

The distorting, cheap mirror had so often reflected the last touches to a toilet carefully planned to give a fictitious air of prosperity, and to a face really illu¬ mined by a new day of fresh hopefulness.

The three framed religious mottoes on the wall had become endurable and almost dear with that ineffable something bred of familiarity.

And this was the room in which his great thought had come—The Solution.

He went to the grimy, fly-specked, rain-spotted window and stared down upon the ugly vehicles and lorries of Lisson Grove. He looked over at the Florence Nightingale Hospital and thought of the wistful-eyed, red-haired little nurse whom he had sometimes noticed gazing out unseeing, as one fighting some hopeless problem. She had once looked up and her glance had collided with his observing eye. He had smiled, not flirtatiously, but in a sort of touch-onthe-shoulder, hand-clasp fashion—the lip and eye mes¬ sage of a fighter to a fellow-soldier. Jerry wished she were at the window to-day. Perhaps she would have given him a smile for luck.

He thought, a trifle wistfully, of his only acquaint¬ ance on the street, the polite little old man in the an¬ tique shop, where he had so frequently gone to look about, admire, covet, but never to purchase.

He even thought, with a kindly tolerance, of his rusty-gowned, oily-faced, dirty-finger-nailed landlady. On the dressing-table lay an envelope addressed to her. It contained all he owed and one pound more—a gen¬ erosity made possible by the sale of his overcoat that morning and the fact that he himself would now have no imaginable use for the extra pound.

His landlady had always distrusted and disliked him, because he was an American. Of course she’d think him queerer than ever now—think him as mad as a spinning white mouse. Perhaps he was. Un¬ doubtedly, from her point of view, and that probably of all other sane people—especially the English sane— he was on the verge of doing a perfectly mad thing. Yes, to nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand it would seem utterly mad.

“But,” thought Jerry, “the nine hundred and ninety-nine would acknowledge themselves mashed if the Tank of Fate had passed over and over and over them. That’s where the difference lies. I don’t feel mashed. I don’t mash. How do I get that way? Dunno. S’pose it’s because I’m American.”

Jerry mentally shrugged his shoulders—an outward and inward habit he had developed in France—and said aloud, as his thoughts shrugged, “C'est la vie”

As he proceeded to disgorge the contents of his pockets he wrenched himself free from the last trace of gloom due to impending departure from things accustomed, and broke into a whistle. The notes of that classic war song known as “Parlez vouz” (which is not heard in drawing-rooms) filled the room with an atmosphere of insouciant cheeriness and irresponsibility.

Whistling, he read over the various addresses of men of affairs scribbled on many slips of paper. How much gilt-edged hope each name had held out at one time or another. He walked over to the grate, which had become the crematory of his past, and flung the addresses on top of the smouldering remains of burnt letters.

A silver cigarette-case was reluctantly drawn forth. He stared wistfully at its gold-lined emptiness.

“Wish to the Lord I hadn’t had my monogram put on it,” thought he. “That piece of bull condemns it too. Can’t have anything with ‘J. E. M.’ found on me, which reminds me . . . ‘Cash’ name, maker’s and laundry marks must all be got off my clothes.”

He disrobed, thinking meanwhile what a difficult business it was, this blotting out all evidences of one’s identity. Human beasts may not be branded as are the cattle, but they are pretty indelibly marked in one way or another, all the same.

It was even difficult to find a virginal handkerchief, one free from all evidence of former possession.

He walked toward the bed on which sat an open

IO travelling-bag. Beside it lay a few articles of clothing, two books—John Burroughs’ Time and Change — Locke’s Wonderful Year —and a small box. He opened the box. It held but a medal and bit of ribbon, but it held Jerry Middleton’s entire pride of memory. It was the Croix de Guerre. As he stared down upon the decoration, he re-lived an hour in a French hospital, and some later minutes on a certain field; there came a hitherto unknown tightening of the throat, as two large tears split over the surprised lashes of his eyes. With a characteristic American horror of sentimentality, he smeared the tears into a general dampness and flung the box and its contents into the tomb of the bag. It was the crude burial of his most treasured souvenir, the burial also of his last scruple, his conscience. . . .

All the oddments on the bed followed the medal into the bag. He then helped himself to the two bricks, which an economical landlady had placed on either side of the grate to reduce its coal-holding capacity to still more Lilliputian dimensions.

What to do with the bag now it was packed, weighted, and locked was, to use Jerry’s expression, enough to ball one up. Then suddenly there came to his memory a stagnant-looking canal once passed on a fruitless search for a job in Maida Vale.

“It’s a long, long way,” he sighed, then braced up, as he added, “What am I thinking of? I don’t need to wear out my new kicks footing it now. When a fellow’s giving himself a sort of ta-ta outing, what’s a bus fare or two?”

One thing only remained to be done—remove the moustache and beard which he had grown some months earlier in order to give an otherwise too youthful countenance the tone of maturity. These tonsorial adornments had, however, failed to inspire confidence ii in the minds of callous employers. As the razor sped through the foaming breakers on his face, and he saw his countenance returning to its pre-peace youthful¬ ness, Jerry intoned: “And these are the cheeks which Petain kissed.” As he removed the last hairs, he told himself: “Can’t have any of the scornful guys who refused my services recognizing the pictures which will probably be published to-morrow.”

Everything now being in order, Jerry stood for the last time before the cheap, distorting mirror, gave a touch to his harmonious tie, adjusted his immaculate cuffs, and apostrophized himself as follows: “Jerrold Emerson Middleton, I’ll tell the world you’ve been a dam’ good chum, a good fighter, and a cheerful duffer to live with. You haven’t shown any J. Pierpont genius, but you’ve been daggone game, and I’m right down proud of the rarefied regions to which your brain has soared in the final hour of Pittsburg black¬ ness. Now you are all dolled up, so step out amongst ’em. All I can say is, ‘Cheerio!’ ”

Two hours later a well-dressed, well-bred, boredlooking, excessively pale, and almost emaciated young man stood on the kerb of that busy spot of London where Euston and Tottenham Court Roads meet.

He stared at the ceaseless tumult of traffic and took a last census of his emotions. If they could have been summed up in a concrete sentence, they might have run thus: “Of course it’s taking chances— chances of everything happening except the planned, but, after all, chance is the keynote of this venture, so here’s hoping, and here goes!”

With a brief valedictory to common sense and his past, he walked out as a bather into a raging surf— straight into the traffic and the future.

Half a minute later a policeman’s eye became attracted to a man standing transfixed in the mael¬ strom of Euston Road. The man took off his hat, ran his fingers through his short hair, and stared with drawn brows at an oncoming car. The car made a sharp detour, throwing an approaching 23 bus out of its accustomed route, and forcing it in turn to make a bee-line for the transfixed figure. The driver honked forth curses, and yanked on the brake, drawing up a short yard from the obstacle of traffic. Lurid language fell on apparently deaf ears. The object of invectives merely stared before him blankly as he slowly passed a hand over his forehead.

A motor cycle, making the turn into Tottenham Court Road, almost grazed the man’s legs as it thundered by deafeningly, yet the most careful observer would not have detected the controlled wincing of the figure just missed.

Manoeuvring himself between the congestion of traffic, the policeman lifted the hand of power and approached the cause of trouble. At sight of the Bobby the first glimmer of intelligence came to the face of the hitherto immobile figure. Springing across an open space, he seized the guardian of the law and cried:

“Man! In God’s name find me —find me , I tell you.” Clutching the blue sleeve, he looked excitedly into the eyes of the calm policeman and asked, “How did I get here?”

The Bobby gazed at him with an enormous British patience and remained silent.

“Don’t you understand?” implored the speaker. “I’m lost—can’t remember—can’t—by George! . . .” He suddenly staggered, and a very curious blue pallor spread over his face. He would have fallen but for the quick support of a uniformed arm.

A whistle sounded. A second Bobby came hurrying. “What’s up?” he asked. “Suicide or a drunk?” “Neither,” said the supporter of Jerry Middleton. “Case for ambulance. Hunger, I think, and loss of memory.”

CHATPER II

The following morning Miss Felicity Trevider sat softly munching her breakfast toast while waiting for the maid to bring mustard for the bacon. Her eyes strayed through the mullioned windows, across a clear¬ ing in the Tolvean park above the wind-clipped even tops of distant trees, to the pale silver grey of the sea.

It was the same view Miss Trevider had gazed out upon, in all aspects of weather—grey mists, tempests, sodden rains, and sparkling sunshine—as far back as she could remember, and her memory could span the mornings of more than half a century.

The view was, to her, Cornwall, and the word Cornwall was probably engraved on both the auricles and ventricles of her heart. So intensely Cornish was Miss Trevider, she shared the fisher-folk’s aloof attitude toward the inhabitants of all other English counties, regarded the denizens of Devon, the habitants of Hants, as “belonging” to England. Cornwall was still the Duchy, not England, to Miss Trevider.

She was gazing serenely at the gentle landscape framed by the old grey stone edges of the windows when the maid returned, bringing the mustard and the morning paper.

Miss Felicity was a sociable and affectionate soul by nature, and she was lonely. She longed to open the paper for companionship, but self-control and habit forbade it. She ate when she ate and read when she read. Even the best regulated souls, 14 however, know the secret joy of compromise, so she felt it no infringement on the conventions of her customs to lay the paper in such a manner that the back page was visible to a roving eye. The back page with the pictorial section.

Miss Felicity’s eye roved. The wandering, des¬ ultory gaze suddenly became riveted, then electrified with interest. She stared fixedly, with dilated eyes, upon the reproduction of a photograph of a clean¬ shaven, lean-cheeked, frank-eyed, well-featured young man. Quickly her eyes transferred themselves to the caption beneath. It ran:

“Who is he? He was found in Euston Road yes¬ terday afternoon suffering from loss of memory. The police wish to establish his identity.”

The little spinster, in her excitement, broke the habit of a lifetime. Forgetting her breakfast, she tremblingly opened the paper, her eyes scanning the inner sheets in search of further details of the man of mystery. After much gleaning she detected, in an obscure corner of the journal, the following item:

“Man With Lost Memory.—There is now at the Tottenham Court Road Police Station a young man of about twenty-seven years of age, suffering from malnutrition and loss of memory. He is six feet two inches in height, of fair, pale complexion, brown hair, and brown eyes. When found he was wearing a gray tweed suit, a dove-coloured soft felt hat, black shoes, and a blue shirt of good quality, but devoid of a maker’s mark. There were no personal or identifying articles found upon him, and only twopence in change, which, in view of his well-dressed appearance, suggests, according to the theory of the police, that he may have been the victim of robbery and possibly of violence.”

Miss Felicity, her toast and marmalade unfinished, rose and pulled the old-fashioned silk bell cord.

i6

The young maid reappeared.

“Alice,” said her mistress in the quavering tones of unwonted excitement, “ask Paynter to come to me at once.”

The servant retired, imbued with a contagion of excitement over she knew not what. She had never before heard her little mistress speak with such lack of deliberation.

Paynter, the old housekeeper, bustled in, expectancy of the unusual writ large on her ruddy countenance. She was silently confronted by the picture entitled “Who Is He?” She stared, speechless.

“Paynter,” said Miss Felicity, with unaccustomed breathlessness, “does that remind you of any one?”

Paynter, who had had too busy and humble a youth to learn reading and writing, could make neither head nor tail of the words printed below the picture, so she confined her concentration entirely upon the face itself.

“It certainly do, ma’m,” she ventured at last, “an* beggin’ your pardon for mentionin’ it, but it looks to me as if it belonged to be a picture of the young master, ma’m.”

“Oh, Paynter!” gasped Miss Felicity. “Do you really think so? Look again. Aren’t the ears too small—isn’t the face rather too thin—the eyes a trifle farther apart?”

“There may be points,” hesitated the old house¬ keeper. “I can’t say exactly. It’s six years since I’ve seen ’e, you know, ma’m, but it fair give me a turn for the moment when I see it, it be so like ’e that last day when-”

“That will do, Paynter,” interrupted her mistress, with dignity. She stared before her with unfocused vision for some moments, then turned towards her servant with a soft helplessness.

“Paynter, I’m sorely perplexed. I don’t know what to do. Look again,” she pleaded. “Look at it upside down and tell me your honest opinion.”

The old servant took the paper and reversed it.

“It do be lookin’ lovely this way, ma’m,” she de¬ clared. “As pretty a picture of Mr. Monty as you’ve a mind to see—older, but ’e to the life.”

“Paynter,” said Miss Felicity solemnly, “I’m con¬ vinced. I’m going on a journey.”

“Never, ma’m!” cried Paynter. “Lord, Miss Felicity, ’ee haven’t been out of Cornwall since— since-”

“Tell Sam to go down to the village and find out from the postmistress at what time I can catch the Cornish Riviera at St. Erth. I’m going to London, Paynter.” These last words were spoken with the impressiveness with which one might announce, “I’m going to die.”

“Don’t stare,” commanded the little lady; “do as I tell you, and hurry. And—one moment, Paynter— not a word to the other servants of what I have shown you.”

The old housekeeper drew herself up proudly.

“That’s understood, ma’m. It’s just between we. But, Miss Felicity”—Paynter’s tone became curiously dictatorial—“if you be goin’ to London, us be going together. Haven’t I took care of ’ee all yer life? Yes’m, I be goin’, and that’s settled. I’d rather be stirrin’ than settin’. I couldn’t set here and think on ’ee adrift in London. No, ma’m, it ain’t no use talking. I be goin’, too.” Paynter, having delivered herself of her decision, sailed from the room with the majesty of a barque.

Miss Felicity took up the paper from the table and gazed tenderly at the face of our friend, Jerry Middleton, as she murmured brokenly:

“My poor dear Monty!”

Chapter III

After his demobilization from the Legion Etrangbre Jerry Middleton had made his way across the Channel, drawn to England by the call of blood, for, though a citizen of America by birth, a soldier of France by oath of allegiance, Jerry felt himself English—English by right of an English father.

He had chosen an unfortunate time to seek his fortune in the land of his paternal ancestors, for England was then struggling with her seemingly unsolvable problem of how to find sufficient employ¬ ment for her own demobilized officers and men. Stories of houseless and jobless heroes filled the daily journals.

When, after months of bitter failure and everincreasing hardships and ever-decreasing funds, Jerry had finally faced actual foodlessness, he spent a day soberly marshalling facts against fancy, the realities of the situation against visions of hope, and had asked himself squarely, “What’s to be done?” Six months earlier he would have answered that question by the succinct reply, “Go to work.” He had, however, been forced to the consciousness that the most sincere desire in the world to work would not and could not magically produce the opportunity. It was in the middle of the night—when fantastic thoughts are abroad in the ether—that the fantastic solution of his difficulty came to him. At first he laughed aloud at the brazen American gall of the 18 thing, as he termed it, and then its very cheekiness began to lend the idea an allure.

“After all,” he argued, “it’s not actually criminal— not like sandbagging a millionaire or looting the poor-box. At its worst it would be only playing a part—carrying out a ruse for time.” The object of the game would be temporarily to procure free food and lodging, until he got back his physical strength. Then he could go forth again to battle with existence.

“Anybody with an ounce of theatrical ability could get away with it,” he declared to himself. “It needs only a little cleverness, plenty of ‘bull/ constant alertness to avoid the pitfalls of reminiscence—and nerve, brass-headed nerve. Pretend lost memory! —why, the thing ought to be as simple as falling off the roof of a skyscraper!

“Of course,” he had assured himself, “if it begins, at any hour, to wax serious, or assume disagreeable expression, all Fve got to do is to suddenly and miraculously recover my temporarily lost and strayed memory and start all over again, the better for my physical and mental rest—to say nothing of the food obtained at the expense of the British public.”

All these thoughts recurred to Jerry as he lay in the Tottenham Court Road Police Station the morn¬ ing after his adventure on Euston Road. What the ultimate outcome of his histrionic performance would be was of course now in the hands of the gods.

On the whole, he had not had a dull time. The doctor who had inspected him the night before had been rather tiresome, ordering that the stomach of the unknown was, under no considerations, to be over¬ taxed—just when Jerry began to realize how raven¬ ously hungry he was.

On the doctor’s return that morning, accompanied by a confrere, he had been less tiresome, but more disturbing. The two medical wiseacres had put him through various silly stunts—made him place the tips of his fingers slowly together and then talked learnedly in words of three syllables. The only term intelligible to Jerry’s ears had been the word “co¬ ordination.” They had made him most uncomfortable by performances with an electric torch held close to his eyes, while they discussed the reflex action of the pupils. An examination of his skull and the discovery of a small scar, caused by a splinter of shell, called forth talk of “possible pressure.” Jerry became genuinely alarmed when he heard doctor number one talk about removing him to a hospital and of keeping him under observation for some days before they began to experiment.

“Experiment!” exclaimed Jerry inwardly. “Not on your life. I’ll not have anybody slicing open my precious skull sapping for a lost memory.”

Throughout the medical examination Jerry had remained apparently indifferent, and to all questions gave such idiotically stupid replies as to make him ashamed of himself.

The physicians retired, murmuring: “Undoubted case of shell-shock.”

Before afternoon Jerry found himself staggered by the evidence of the great number of missing men in London. Five people of various social rank had called to inspect him. But he was nobody’s sought-for darling. At noon a woman had arrived and explained that she had expected to find a lost husband, aged fifty-two.

“Golly!” thought Jerry. “The photograph they took of me yesterday afternoon must have been a bear if this old party thought she might find in me her missing link.”

The most diverting hour he had spent had been with a little lost kiddie the matron had brought in to see him. When questioned, the little chap would only repeat over and over: “Went to walk in Wegent’s Park wif Tommy. Tommy said he’d show me ePphunts —den he wunned away.” This autobiographical effort was invariably concluded by the chorus-dirge of: “I want my mummy!”

In his attempt to be interesting and diverting for the benefit of the lost boy, Jerry almost came his first cropper—just catching himself in time as he was on the verge of a reminiscence beginning: “When I was a little boy ...”

As the child was led out of the door Jerry heard a policeman in the corridor saying to the matron:

“Another claimant for the young toff what’s hoff ’is crumpet.”

Jerry had grown so accustomed to claimants by now, he felt but little thrill over the prospect of a new¬ comer. His indifference, however, was quickened to intense interest by the sudden apparition before him of a fluttery little creature of the most perfect early Victorian type. The old lady, tiptoeing nervously, came forward, followed by a heavy-footed, large, red-cheeked, jolly person adorned in a be-feathered black hat and a be-bugled black cape. At sight of Jerry the jolly person almost eclipsed her face by hasty dabs at her eyes with a large pocket-handkerchief.

With hesitating steps, and much evident trembling, the little old lady fluttered to Jerry’s side, her whole heart glowing in her eyes. Involuntarily he held out a hand and found it clasped in two quivering ones as the dear little soul sank to her knees beside him, cry¬ ing: “Oh Monty! Monty dear!”

“Good Lord!” thought Jerry. “I’ll be blowed. Never in my wildest Wild West schemes had I ever thought of being adopted by any one, but how am I going to resist this bird-like angel? She’ll get my goat. Damned if she won’t. I can’t resist her—I feel it—I know it.”

“Don’t cry. Please don’t cry/’ was all he could think of to say aloud.

The tear-stained little wrinkled face with its big appealing innocent eyes was lifted as the quivering lips framed the words:

“Don’t you remember me, Monty dear? Don’t you remember your Aunt Felicity?”

“Aunt Felicity,” thought Jerry ecstatically. “Oh, joy of joys! what a pippin of a name.”

“Only wish I did—wish to Heaven I could, but I really and honestly don’t, you know. All out of luck. Can’t keep anything in my bean for five minutes. Nobody home!”

American slang being as unintelligible to his audi¬ ence as Sanscrit, the last sentence uttered by Jerry seemed to Miss Felicity and Paynter like the ravings of a lunatic.

“Bean! Home!” echoed Miss Felicity brokenly.

“Poor laddie!” sympathized the jolly fat person, who stood with folded hands behind the little kneeling figure.

“Can you remember how to read, dear?” asked the perfect example of early Victorian.

“Don’t know really,” said Jerry. “Nobody’s thought to invite me to have a try.”

The little creature rose to her feet, took a news¬ paper from her black silk reticule, opened it, and handed it to Jerry.

By mere chance the first thing that met his eye was:

“Newmarket Selections”

He read aloud:

“The first October meeting which convenes to-day promises some interesting racing. For the opening day my selections are:

1.30—Wildfire 2.00—Bonaventure. . .

He had got only so far when he felt an electric element in the air, and raised his eyes from the sheet to witness a lightning exchange of glances between “Aunt Felicity” and the ruddy person. He also noticed that the cheeks of his would-be aunt had grown perceptibly pale, and that the plump person was slowly nodding her head with a smug expression of “What did I tell you?”

The fiuttery little lady then fluttered over to the matron (who had stood silently by, during the enact¬ ment of the foregoing scene) and said:

“I now feel certain it is he—there is no longer any doubt whatever in my mind as to the identity of the poor boy. He is without the shadow of a question my nephew, Norman Montagu Trevider.”

“Norman Montagu Trevider!” gasped Jerry Middleton inwardly. “Great guns! what am I to do? It would be like murdering women and children to deceive this dear old thing, but can I prove I’m not her blossoming nectarine of a nephew without giving away the whole show? Well I swan! I have got myself into a sacred mess. Feel perfectly pie¬ eyed.”

He was in the midst of the greatest mental panic he had ever experienced when he felt two arms steal round his neck and a lavender-scented, soft, wrinkled cheek press against his own.

All his loneliness, his homelessness, his unloved-

.24 ness, surged over him; all his hitherto unrealized yearning for companionship, home, love, crested his thoughts, as, curiously enough, a long-forgotten fragment of Byron came winging into his memory:

“The poorest, veriest wretch on earth Still finds some hospitable hearth. . .

He realized the “hospitable hearth” which these encircling arms epitomized, and his heart ached homesickly for the love embodied in the caressing cheek against his. He felt himself wavering, weakening. To the last cry of his conscience he said, “Shut up,” and, lifting his own arms, placed them gently, rever¬ ently, around the tiny frail body of “Aunt Felicity.”

“I knew she’d get me—I knew it. Here goes nothing!” thought Jerry, as with a delicious, irre¬ sponsible sensation of intoxication he declared to himself he had but capitulated to the inevitable—his conscience thereupon adroitly shifting all burden of responsibility upon the Atlas shoulders of Fate.

And who can say whether he was wrong or right in feeling himself but a pawn in the great hand of some unknown player? Mark Twain has said that the first impulse of the first atom decided what each of us should be doing at this particular moment. According to this theory, Jerry Middleton was but helplessly carrying out the design ordained by a whimsical first atom.

Chapter IV

It was the imposing individual whom Miss Trevider spoke of as “dear Sir Wilfred” who arranged all the formalities and manipulated the red-tape incident to the establishment of her claim of relationship to that American soldier of fortune known to himself and to us as Jerry Middleton.

It was also this same Sir Wilfred who had arrived at the conservative old-fashioned hotel—dear to the hearts of provincials—to announce to Miss Trevider that after much telegraphing and trouble he had at last succeeded in running Wiggs to earth. By what seemed to Miss Felicity a special grace of Providence, Wiggs had been found to be unemployed at the moment. He had expressed himself by wire as avail¬ able, and delighted to enter again the service of his former young master.

“Wiggs was—as indeed we all were—devoted to Monty,” Miss Felicity reminded Sir Wilfred, “and he may perhaps be of great help in stirring up memories of the past in the poor boy’s clouded mind.”

“And I’ve sent a wire to Celia,” said Sir Wilfred, with a sonorous clearing of the throat. “She will share in your great relief and happiness, Miss Trevider, and will, I’m sure, want to be among the first to welcome the wanderer home.”

“You have been most thoughtful about every¬ thing, dear Sir Wilfred,” murmured Miss Felicity. “What I would ever have done without you, I don’t know. This thing has indeed made me realize what a 25 poor, helpless creature a woman is, when faced with anything outside her own little realm of home. How could I have ever proved that I am his aunt without your wise assistance?”

Sir Wilfred protested, but preened himself with masculine pride and sat a trifle more uprightly.

“And what of your interview with him—with Monty?” queried the little lady. “Did he give any evidences of recognition?”

“None whatever,” said Sir Wilfred, with rather an air of relief, mentally avoiding a sharp memory of a none too pleasant half-hour spent with young Trevider six years earlier, just indeed before that young man had decamped for parts unknown.

“But you feel sure I am right—that there is no doubt of his identity?” asked Miss Felicity anxiously. “Certainly, my dear lady, certainly, no doubt whatever. Only the changes which six years would naturally produce—older, maturer, and, let us hope, steadier. I base great hopes on his return to Cornwall and all his old surroundings—great hopes. Rest and time will, I am sure, restore everything—everything to its old footing,” he concluded, with significance.