Hugh sat staring at the paper and saw the black letters and the words but found no meaning in them. Across the dim hall he could see through the open door the strip of greensward that ran across the front of Everscombe, part black with the shadow of the east wing and part dazzling bright with the noon sun. He fixed his gaze upon the clean line where the shade gave way to vivid light, till the sunny greenness blurred before his eyes; he felt the roughness of the paper, as he creased and recreased it with nervous fingers, but he could not think; he could only feel that something vast and portentous was coming into his life. A noise of tramping feet and a burst of voices roused him. The conference ended, the men came slowly from the east parlor, and lingered speaking together, then scattered, some with Nathaniel Oldesworth into the main part of the house, some with Thomas Oldesworth out upon the terrace. Master Gilbert Oldesworth was not among them, Hugh noted, and on a sudden impulse he half ran across the hall and entered the east parlor, closing the door behind him. Master Oldesworth looked up from the paper over which he had been poring. “You would speak with me, Hugh?” he asked, with a touch of displeasure in his tone. “If I may. ’Tis important,” Hugh stammered. “Will you look at this letter? No, not all, just this place, sir.” Hugh stood at his grandfather’s side, griping the edge of the table so he saw the blood leave his fingers. In the elms outside the open window the rooks still scolded, and over in the corner of the room the great clock ticked loudly, but there was no other sound till Hugh had counted thrice sixty of its noisy ticks. Then the boy drew a quick breath, and, dreading what he might find, raised his eyes to his grandfather’s face. But he saw no sign there for several moments, not till Master Oldesworth had laid down Frank Pleydall’s letter, and then Hugh perceived there was something akin to pity in the old man’s eyes. “Well, Hugh, and what would you know?” he asked. “That man, Alan Gwyeth, is he—” Hugh felt and knew what the answer would be before Master Oldesworth spoke the words slowly: “Yes, Hugh, ’tis your father.” CHAPTER II HOW ONE SET OUT TO SEEK HIS FORTUNE “You must have known at last, but I had not thought it would be so soon,” Master Oldesworth went on. “’Twas folly ever to have kept it from you.” In a blind way Hugh had groped for a chair and sat down with his elbow on the table and his forehead pressing hard upon his hand. His face was toward the window and he was aware of the brightness flooding in through it, but he could see clearly only his grandfather’s thin, clean-shaven lips and searching eyes. “Tell me,” he found voice to say at last, “I want to know all. My father—he has been alive all these years? You knew?” Master Oldesworth nodded.