"What is her name?" I asked, laughing. "It ought to be Mary Magdalen, for she has seven devils in her this morning." "Don't you remember the Duchess?" he inquired with a flicker of something like a smile crossing his heavy face. "You christened her yourself." I remembered the Duchess. The yearling colt had been given to him on his sixteenth birthday. He wanted to call her Georgy, but his mother forbade it: so we named her after that duchess of Devonshire who had made the name famous. "You'll find I have forgotten nothing," I replied, "but my thoughts are such a medley that I can't settle them at once." "When did you return?" "Only four days ago: I have not seen my mother yet." "And you have come to look me up? Floyd, that is kind." Something in his cool, pleasant tones touched me powerfully. "I knew nothing about you," I blurted out. "Why, Jack, at this minute I'm not sure if you are married or not." "I am not married," he said softly. He was not used to reply so quickly, and I waited for him to speak before I questioned him further. "I am well," he said presently, "and mother is in her usual health. Have you heard about my father?" "Nothing. Both Harry and I have famished for news of you." I could see a little trouble in his face: he would have preferred that somebody else should have broken his news to me. But he sighed, and went on without flinching. "My father had a paralytic stroke in December," he explained in his deliberate, gentle voice. "When once our eyes were opened we could easily comprehend that for months his mind had been failing. When the bad news came the accumulation of trouble was too much for him. We thought at first nothing could save him, but he rallied physically. His mind has quite gone, however," Jack added, his voice trembling: "his brain has softened." I stared at him speechlessly: I knew by instinct that I had not heard the worst. "The moment I saw you," pursued Jack, "my first thought was, 'I hope he knows the whole story.' You heard nothing of our failure?" "Not a word."