“Oh, one can tell.” “You’ve seen her only twice. You must have noticed her very particularly.” “I’ve noticed Cantyre very particularly; and just as he wouldn’t make her the right kind of husband she wouldn’t make him the right kind of wife.” When Annette said anything in which there was a special motive a series of concentric shadows fled over her face like ripples from the spot where a stone is thrown into a pool. “Well, I’m glad you don’t like her, if it isn’t a rude thing to say.” “What has my liking her or not liking her got to do with it?” “Nothing but the question of your own safety. If she notices how much you’re like Jack—” “If she was going to notice that,” I said, boldly, “she would have done it already.” “And so much the worse for you if she has—unless you’re put on your guard.” “If you mean put on my guard against the danger of being Cantyre’s successor in a similar experience—” “That was my idea.” “Well, I can give you all the reassurance you need, Annette. In the first place, I’ve got no money—” The relevance of her interruption did not come to me till nearly a year later. “Frank dear, I must ask you, while I think of it, didn’t you know that your mother was very, very ill?” All the blood in my body seemed to rush back to my heart and to stay there. We talked no more of Regina Barry, nor of anything but stark fundamental realities. In an instant they became as much the essentials of my life as if Regina Barry had never existed. Annette showed herself much better informed as to my career than she pretended to be, giving me to understand that the day on which I disappeared my mother had received a kind of death-blow. She was of the type to leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness to go after that which was lost; and in her inability to do so she had been seized, so Annette told me, with a mortal pining away. With her decline my father was declining also, and all because of me. “I’ve been the most awful rotter, Annette,” I groaned, as I staggered to my feet. “You know that, don’t you?” “Yes, Frank, I do know it. That’s why I’ve been so glad to get hold of you at last, and ask you to—to redeem yourself.” “Redeem myself by going back?” She looked up at me and nodded. “Oh, but how can I?” _CHAPTER XII_ My question was answered next evening by Beady Lamont. Greatly to Lovey’s disgust, I made it a point to attend every Saturday meeting at the club. “Them low fellas ain’t fit company for you, Slim,” he would protest. “What’s the use of cuttin’ out the booze and bein’ rich if you don’t ’old yer ’ead above the likes o’ that?” “They’ve been awfully white with us, Lovey.” “They wasn’t no whiter with us than they’d be with anybody else; and don’t three out o’ every five give ’em the blue Peter?” But though we had this discussion once a week, he always accompanied me to Vandiver Street, showing his disapproval when he got there in sitting by himself and refusing to respond to advances.