"Oh, Hester, I had forgotten you!" he groaned. "She's bound to hear this awful disclosure. The secret seems common property. Perhaps she'll turn from me, or worse still, she will take sides with that half-caste, Cheveril. But after all this vile secret may be long in filtering through. My rôle is to put a bold front on it, and hold up my head and pose as heretofore as a pure-bred Englishman. If any rumour reaches my wife's ear I can squash it by persuading her that the whole thing is a slander trumped up by my enemies. But the allowance? I can't, I shan't continue to finger a penny of the money that comes from that man! I'll throw it back in his face, hard up as I am, at least I'll command Truelove Brothers to do so. I'll have no dealings with him. I'll pass him as before. I'll let the hoofs of my horses trample on him if they will. No mawkish sentiment for me! I'm not going to risk my reputation by having it known my father is a half-caste--even if it's true! The whole story may be a lie. I may only be some ward of his, and he swindling me with but a slice of my fortune." A prey to seething thoughts, almost without knowing it he had started on his homeward walk. At the moment when he clung to the hope that after all he was the victim of some conspiracy and that there was no blood-tie between him and the hated community, he happened to glance up at a bungalow which was now brightly lit by oil lamps. Its circular verandah was ornamented with trellis-work eaves, among which tendrils of a dark glossy creeper intertwined. Suddenly there sprang to his mind the conviction that he had seen that spot long ago. Yes, those trellis-work eaves had looked down upon him when he was a little boy! One day he had gleefully rolled a new bright painted wheelbarrow along that verandah, and the giver of that wheelbarrow, a grave, silent big man with grey eyes, stood by watching him as he played, with a smile on his face--the smile of David Morpeth! Then the little boy had pushed his wheelbarrow down those red steps and run full tilt at the gardener's baby, a little, naked, brown urchin, who stood gazing open-mouthed, and knocked him down, while the air rent with his shrill cries. Then the smile vanished from the face of the big man, and with a stern air he brought his fingers down sharply on the owner of the new wheelbarrow, who in his turn gave an angry yell which brought a half-dressed woman with long black locks falling about her to the verandah. She had folded the boy in her arms, saying shrilly: "What are you doing to my _chota sahib_? You shall not touch my precious one with your big hands." "I punished him for knocking down the gardener's boy, Flora," answered a grave voice. "A native brat! What matter of thatt?" And the grave voice replied: "If you bring the boy up like this, Flora Rayner, he'll turn out a scoundrel." Then the big man turned away with sad, stern eyes--the eyes of David Morpeth!