“But you're coming out all right, St. George!” Rutter had squared himself in his chair and was now looking straight at his host. “Gorsuch has written you half a dozen letters about it and not a word from you in reply. Now I see why. But all that will come out in time, I tell you. You're not going to stay here for an hour longer.” His old personality was beginning to assert itself. “The future doesn't interest me, Talbot,” smiled St. George in perfect good humor. “In my experience my future has always been worse than my past.” “But that is no reason why you shouldn't go home with me now and let us take care of you,” Rutter cried in a still more positive tone. “Annie will be delighted. Stay a month with me--stay a year. After what I owe you, St. George, there's nothing I wouldn't do for you.” “You have already done it, Talbot--every obligation is wiped out,” rejoined St. George in a satisfied tone. “How?” “By coming here and asking Harry's pardon--that is more to me than all the things I have ever possessed,” and his voice broke as he thought of the change that had taken place in Harry's fortunes in the last half hour. “Then come out to Moorlands and let me prove it!” exclaimed the colonel, leaning forward in his eagerness and grasping St. George by the sleeve. “No,” replied St. George in appreciative but positive tones--showing his mind was fully made up. “If I go anywhere I'll go back to my house on Kennedy Square--that is to the little of it that is still mine. I'll stay there for a day or two, to please Harry--or until they turn me out again, and then I'll come back here. Change of air may do me good, and besides, Jemima and Todd should get a rest.” The colonel rose to his feet: “You shall do no such thing!” he exploded. The old dominating air was in full swing now. “I tell you you WILL come with me! Damn you, St. George!--if you don't I'll never speak to you again, so help me, God!” St. George threw back his head and burst into a roar of laughter in which, after a moment of angry hesitation, Rutter joined. Then he reached down and with his hand on St. George's shoulder, said in a coaxing tone--“Come along to Moorlands, old fellow--I'd be so glad to have you, and so will Annie, and we'll live over the old days.” Harry's re-entrance cut short the answer. “No father,” he cried cheerily, taking up the refrain. He had seen the friendly caress and had heard the last sentence. “Uncle George is still too ill, and too weak for so long a drive. It's only the excitement over my return that keeps him up now--and he'll collapse if we don't look out--but he'll collapse in a better place than this!” he added with joyous emphasis. “Todd is outside, the hack is at the gate, and Jemima is now waiting for him in his old room at home. Give me your arm, you blessed old cripple, and let me help you downstairs. Out of the way, father, or he'll change his mind and I'll have to pick him up bodily and carry him.”