not been seeking him I should have seen it. I found out his name, and that I was right, and took him up and drove to the Union. They raised no objections—it was only a matter of form. The master and his wife seem to be good people, and to have been kind to the boy.”

He came to a pause again. Aymer still waited. Mr. Aston walked to the window and looked out at the night, and then went on without turning:

“She had never left the slightest clue or given any hint whatever as to her identity. She was going to Southampton, she said. But she was dying of exhaustion then. They could do nothing for her. She asked them to keep the boy. The Mosses took a fancy to 26 him, and it was managed. She would not say where she came from.”

Aymer lay very still, his face set and immovable.

“The strength of her purpose: think of it, in a woman!” said Mr. Aston a little unsteadily; “the boy should have grit in him, Aymer.”

“What did they say of the boy?”

“Ah.” Mr. Aston resumed his seat with a sigh.

“Well, what’s your own impression, Aymer?”

“I am satisfied.”

Mr. Aston leant forward with a wealth of affection in his kind eyes, and straightened the edge of the gorgeous sofa cover. “Aymer, old chap, you are too sensible, I know, to imagine it is going to run easily and smoothly from the first. The boy will come out all right: he is young enough to shape, and worth shaping. But he has had everything against him except one thing. It means many troubles and disappointments for you, but I believe it will have its compensations. It will help fill your life, at least.”

“I understand,” said Aymer, steadily. “I should like to tell you just how I feel about it, father. Putting aside entirely the question of it being—Christopher—. That was a stroke of Providence, shall we say? I had you and Nevil, and the children. Life was not altogether empty, sir. But I felt I had learnt something from life,—from myself,—mostly from you,—that might be useful to a man. Not to pass this on,” the steady voice lost its main quality for a moment, “seemed a waste. I told you all this when I first spoke of adopting someone; and at that precise moment the clue which led us to Christopher was put into our hands. There was no choice then. I say this again because I want you to remember that the idea that first started my plan is still the main one. Christopher, being Christopher, does not alter it. There is only this thing certain,” he raised himself a 27 very little on his right arm and laid down his cigarette deliberately, “I’ve taken the boy and I mean to do my best by him, but he is mine now. If the fate that—she died to save him from—comes to him, it must come. I will not stand in his way, but I will have no hand in bringing it to pass, I will raise no finger to summon it, nor will I call him from it, if it come. Until, and unless it comes, he is mine. I think even she would let me have him on those conditions.” He lay back again, his flushed face still witnessing to the force of his feeling.

“On any conditions,” said his father, “if she knew you now. Only you must bear the chance in mind in dealing with him. And it’s only fair to tell you the Union Master’s report on him.”

“Let’s have it.”

“Fairly docile, but inclined to argue the point. Truthful,—I discovered that myself—but either through lack of training or—according to the Master—through bad training in London, he is—” Mr. Aston stumbled over a word, half laughed, and then said, “well, he has a habit of acquisitiveness, shall we call it? When you think of her history it seems at once natural and strange. They had not known him to actually take things—money, that is,—but if he found any—and he appears to have luck in finding things—he was not particular to discover the real owner. It may be a difficulty, Aymer.”

“Hereditary instinct,” said Aymer a little shortly.

“Well, my own theory is that acquisitiveness is generosity inverted,” concluded Mr. Aston thoughtfully, “and that heredity is merely a danger signal, though it may mean fighting. I believe you can do it, my dear boy, but it is a big job.”

“I hope so, I was a born fighter, you know.”

“You have not done badly that way, son Aymer,” returned his father quietly. 28

“You mean you have not. You are very gracious to a vanquished man, sir.”

It was one of his rare confessions of his indebtedness to his father, and perhaps Mr. Aston was more embarrassed at receiving it than Aymer in confessing it. For the indebtedness was undeniable. The Aymer Aston of the present day was not the Aymer Aston of the first bitter years of his imprisonment. The fight had been a long one: but whether the love, the patience, the forbearance of the elder man had regenerated the fierce nature, or whether he had only assisted the true Aymer to work out his own salvation was an open question. Certainly those dark years had left their mark on Mr. Aston, but, for a certainty they were honourable scars, and he, the richer for his spent strength. He had sacrificed much for him, but the reward reaped for his devotion was the knowledge that of their friendship was woven a curtain of infinite beauty that helped to shut away the tragedy of Aymer’s life.