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and the women in evening dress, his
heart leaped in his breast. Haidee
suddenly seemed like somebody very
distant and remote from him.
And the governor shook him by the
hand. Afterward John danced. He
danced with English girls, with the
bloom of the moist English summer
still on their cheeks. And then the
governor's secretary drew him aside.
"Charlton," he said John knew
the man officially "there will be
some more guests later in the even
ing. A party has just arrived by the
late English steamer. I want you
to stay and meet them. The gover
nor wants it."
John assented. His thoughts were
back in his own country, and in his
heart he saw the busy streets of Lon
don, the Row, where he had ridden in
boyhood, the placid countryside and
smooth lawns of his father's home.
"The fact is," continued the secre
tary, "I don't know if you have heard
you cannot have heard, because
nobody knew your address, and we
were asked to find and notify you.
Your father is dead, Charlton."
John listened, apparently unmov
ed, for his mind was still playing that
curious trick, and he was living over
the past with his father again. He re
membered the old man's affection for
him when he was a little boy, how
they had given him
' jnd your brother is, I am sorry
to say, dead also. He was killed by
a fall in the hunting field. The shock
killed your father."
John was quite unmoved at that
news. He had never had much in
common with his elder brother. As
the younger son, John had always
been put aside in favor of the heir.
"Your brother left no child, Charl
ton," the governor's secretary was
saying. Would he never cease? John
looked at him in a daze. The thought
of Haidee had gone from his mind.
His father dead. His brother dead,
without leaving an heir. Then why
Ke was the baronet
"Sir John, allow me to present you
to some of your old friends," the sec
retary was saying.
And John, still wandering In Lon
don in May, with his nostrils full of
the sweet scent of hyacinths in the
parks, was brought back to con
sciousness of the dreary perfumes of
the ballroom by seeing his sister-in-law
and Amy.
He found himself bowing mechan
ically, just as though he had only
left them the day before. He looked
into Amy's face. What had there ever
been in that woman, to whom he had
given all the passion of a first love?
He had dreamed of her three years
till Haidee came into his life, this red
cheeked English girl, with the faint
smile and the worldly face. Hqw far
away his past life seemed all of a
sudden!
"John," his sister-in-law was say
ing, "won't you come out with us
upon the verandah? I have some-
thing to tell you."
John followed the ladies outside.
He was leaning against the verandah
rail now, and his sister-in-law's
words were buzzing in his head.
"You acted a very noble part,
John," she said. "We the family
shall never cease to be grateful to
you. Few men would have done as
much for their brothers. But after
poor Arthur's death the lawyer went
through his papers. He was a dread
ful man, Mr. Smeaton, one of those
mutton-whiskered Puritanical men
who think that everything irregular
is a crime. He found in your broth
er's desk a written, signed confes
sion and insisted that it should be
made public to the world."
John remembered Mr. Smeaton, a
kindly old man who had always taken
an interest in hhn. So Smeaton was
the man who had come forward so
unexpectedly to retrieve his honor.
"We begged and pleaded, John, but
nothing would move him," his sister-in-law
continued. "We even offered
him three thousand pounds to hush
up the matter, but it wouldn't do.
tW old wre$ch threatened to make
