must try and get the National—Miss Ponsonby takes it, I think. It's unusual for Garrett to be unpunctual."

He entered at the same moment—a tall, thin man of forty years of age, clean shaven and rather bald, with a very slight squint in the right eye. He walked slowly, and always gave the impression that he saw nothing of his surroundings. For the rest, he was said to be extremely cynical and had more than a fair share of the Trojan pride.

"The train is late," he said, addressing no one in particular. "Father, how are you this evening?"

This third attack on Sir Jeremy was repelled by a snort, which Garrett accepted as an answer. "Robin, your tie is atrocious," he continued, picking up the Times and opening it slowly; "you had better change it."

Robin was prevented from answering by the sound of carriage-wheels on the drive. Clare rose and stood by the fireplace near Sir Jeremy; Garrett read to the end of the paragraph and folded the paper on his knee; Robin fingered his watch-chain nervously and moved to his aunt's side—only Sir Jeremy remained motionless and gave no sign that he had heard.

Perhaps he was thinking of that day twenty years before when, after a very heated interview, he had forbidden his son to see his face again until he had done something that definitely justified his existence. Harry had certainly done several things since then that justified his existence; he had, for one thing, made a fortune, and that was not so easily done nowadays. Harry was five-and-forty now; he must be very much changed; he had steadied down, of course ... he would be well able to take his place as head of the family when Sir Jeremy himself....

But he gave no sign. You could not tell that he had heard the carriage-wheels at all; he lay motionless in his chair with his eyes half closed.

There were voices in the hall. Beldam's superlatively courteous tones as of one who is ready to die to serve you, and then another voice—rather loud and sharp, but pleasant, with the sound of a laugh in it.

"They are in the blue drawing-room, sir—Mr. Henry," Beldam's voice was heard on the stairs, and, in a moment, Beldam himself appeared—"Mr. Henry, Sir Jeremy." Then he stood aside, and Henry Trojan entered the room.

Clare made a step forward.

"Harry—old boy—at last———"

Both her hands were outstretched, but he disregarded them, and, stepping forward, crushed her in his arms, crushed her dress, crushed the beautiful rose at her breast, and, bending down, kissed her again and again.

"Clare—after twenty years!"

He let her go and she stepped back, still smiling, but she touched the rose for a moment and her hair. He was very strong.

And then there was a little pause. Harry Trojan turned and faced his father. The old man made no movement and gave no sign, but he said, his lips stirring very slightly, "I am glad to see you here again, Harry."

The man flushed, and with a little stammer answered, "I am gladder to be back than you can know, father."

Sir Jeremy's wrinkled hand appeared from behind the rugs, and the two men shook in silence.

Then Garrett came forward. "You're not much changed, Harry," he said with a laugh, "in spite of the twenty years."

"Why, Garrie!" His brother stepped towards him and laid a hand on his shoulder. "It's splendid to see you again. I'd almost forgotten what you were like—I only had that old photo, you know—of us both at Rugby."

Robin had stood aside, in a corner by the fireplace, watching his father. It was very much as he had expected, only he couldn't, try as he might, think of him as his father at all. The man there who had kissed Aunt Clare and shaken hands with Sir Jeremy was, in some unexplained way, a little odd and out of place. He was big and strong; his hair curled a little and was dark brown, like Robin's, and his eyes were blue, but, in other respects, there was very little of the Trojan about him. His mouth was large, and he had a brown, slightly curling moustache. Indeed the general impression was brown in spite of the blue, badly fitting suit. He was deeply tanned by the sun and was slightly freckled.

He would have looked splendid in New Zealand or Klondyke, or, indeed, anywhere where you worked with your coat off and your shirt open at the neck; but here, in that drawing-room, it was a pity, Robin thought, that his father had not stopped for two or three days in town and gone to a West End tailor.

But, after all, it was a very nice little scene. It really had been quite moving to see him kiss Clare like that, but, at the same time, for his part, kissing...!

"And Robin?" said Harry.

"Here's the son and heir," said Garrett, laughing, and pushing Robin forward.

Now that the moment had really come, Robin was most unpleasantly embarrassed. How foolish of Uncle Garrett to try and be funny at a time like that, and what a pity it was that his tie was sticking out at one end so much farther than at the other. He felt his hand seized and crushed in the grip of a giant; he murmured something about his being pleased, and then, suddenly, his father bent down and kissed him on the forehead.

They were both blushing, Robin furiously. How he hated sentiment! He felt sure that Uncle Garrett was laughing at him.

"By Jove, you're splendid!" said Harry, holding him back with both his hands on his shoulders. "Pretty different from the nipper that I sent over to England eighteen years ago. Oh, you'll do, Robin."

"And now, Harry," said Clare, laughing, "you'll go and dress, won't you? Father's terribly hungry and the train was late."

"Right," said Harry; "I won't be long. It's good to be back again."

When the door had closed behind him, there was silence. He gave the impression of some one filled with overwhelming, rapturous joy. There was a light in his eyes that told of dreams at length fulfilled, and hopes, long and wearily postponed, at last realised. He had filled that stiff, solemn room with a spirit of life and strength and sheer animal good health—it was even, as Clare afterwards privately confessed, a little exhausting.

Now she stood by the fireplace, smiling a little. "My poor rose," she said, looking at some of the petals that had fallen to the ground. "Harry is strong!"

"He is looking well," said Garrett. It sounded almost sarcastic.

Robin went up to his room to change his tie—he had said nothing about his father.

As Harry Trojan passed down the well-remembered passages where the pictures hung in the same odd familiar places, past staircases vanishing into dark abysses that had frightened him as a child, windows deep-set in the thick stone walls, corners round which he had crept in the dark on his way to his room, it seemed to him that those long, dreary years of patient waiting in New Zealand were as nothing, and that it was only yesterday that he had passed down that same way, his heart full of rage against his father, his one longing to get out and away to other countries where he should be his own master and win his own freedom. And now that he was back again, now that he had seen what that freedom meant, now that he had tasted that same will-o'-the-wisp liberty, how thankful he was to rest here quietly, peacefully, for the remainder of his days; at last he knew what were the things that were alone, in this world, worth striving for—not money, ambition, success, but love for one's own little bit of country that one called home, the patient resting in the heritage of all those accumulating traditions that ancestors had been making, slowly, gradually, for centuries of years.

He had hoped that he would have the same old rooms at the top of the West Towers that he had had when a boy; he remembered the view of the sea from their windows—the great sweep of the Cornish coast far out to Land's End itself, and the gulls whirring with hoarse cries over his head as he leant out to view the little cove nestling at the foot of the Hall. That view, then, had meant