“My life,” echoed the guest a little sadly. “What a weary turmoil it seems looking back at it now, what ceaseless restlessness! Ah, cousin, you have had the best of it, after all!” The squire made no reply. “Let us bury by-gones--they leave a bitter taste behind. I will come to the present, Sholto. I wrote to you with one idea and thought prominent in my mind. In another month or so I shall leave England again, perhaps this time never to return; but, before I go, I want to leave my old inheritance an heir, and I must find him here.” “Here!” repeated the squire. “You forget, Douglas, I am seven years your senior, and in all probability----” “I do not mean you. You have a son.” “Stuart?” exclaimed the squire. “Yes. You have never seen him, Douglas. He is the best in the world.” “I do not need your word to tell me that. I have heard of this son. The world is very small, and my ears are always sharp. He was in Calcutta last year. Yes, and I was there, too.” “Then you know him?” Sir Douglas shook his head. “I never saw; but I heard of his good, warm, generous nature, and, judging him as your son, my heart went out to him.” “It is a noble offer,” the squire said, in his quiet, simple way. “But is there no one whom you would care to select outside the family? Stuart will inherit the castle, remember.” “There is not a soul,” Sir Douglas replied, in low tones. “Don’t cross me in this, Sholto; to your son I would willingly give all I possess. Heaven grant he may derive greater happiness from it than I have done!” There was a silence between the two men; then the squire said, gently: “You look worn and tired, Douglas. Must you leave England again so soon?” “Yes,” Sir Douglas returned briefly. “My search is not ended; if nothing else will support me, revenge will.” He paused for an instant, then went on quickly, “Sholto, old fellow, don’t think me mad or wild; there is a spot in my past which even you can never see. Only this much I will tell you, that, though I am a cynical, dry, hard creature now, there was a time, a brief heavenly time, when my life was as full of joy and vigor as your son’s is now. The memory of that dead joy, the memory of my terrible wrong--for I was wronged--has destroyed my life’s happiness. I live only for two things--to be revenged and to be satisfied.” He rose from his chair as he spoke, and strode rapidly up and down the room, while the squire watched him tenderly and sorrowfully. He read the depth of trouble in the grief-distorted face; but he did not seek to know this or learn in any way the truth of his cousin’s strange career. Sir Douglas suddenly stopped in his hurried walk. “I am not myself to-day, Sholto,” he said, relapsing into his dry manner. “My return to your old home, where everything speaks of the past, has worked badly on me; but the weakness is gone, and--don’t be alarmed--it will not come again.”