To-night he sat and stared into the coals and thought a little wistfully of the past, and wondered a little what had become of the figures that had acted out their lives in close contact with his--some of them, indeed, in that very room. He thought of the tiny child hugging a puppy in its arms, standing outside his gate looking up at him with big, frightened eyes; remembered sunny Sunday mornings when that child had sat beside him in the big pew in church. He sighed at last, and moved restlessly in his chair and turned his head to look round the familiar room. There was a sudden sound of hesitating steps upon the gravel outside, and then a cautious lifting of the latch. The captain twisted in his chair and rose to his feet, picked up the candle from the table, and opened the door of the room. In the shadows of the little hallway he saw a man standing. "Who's there?" cried the captain, raising the light above his head. The man came forward slowly until he stood within a yard of the light and raised his head. The captain staggered back a step into the room. "Forgive me," said the man huskily. "I have wandered outside this old place for an hour, fearing to come in, but now----I suppose you don't care to--to take my hand?" The captain had put down the candle hurriedly, and had the man by both hands and was dragging him in a feeble, excited fashion into the room. "Comethup--my boy--my boy!" he said, over and over again. He got his visitor into a chair near the fire and began to chafe his half-frozen fingers and to put back the long hair from his face as though he had been tending a child. And while he did so Comethup looked steadily and smilingly at him, and the little captain smiled back at Comethup. "This is very good of you, sir," said Comethup at last, in something of the old boyish voice. "I might have known you wouldn't turn from me, however bad you might think I had been. And isn't it good just to get back to the old room again? I've been so happy in this old room! What a little chap I was when I first came to you! Do you remember? And what a lot has happened since then--what a lot has happened!" "Where have you been all this time, boy?" asked the captain, still chafing the other's fingers. "Why have you never been near me?" Comethup shook his head and smiled drearily. "No, I couldn't do that," he said. "I've had something of a fight for it, you know, with no weapons to fight with. Look at me"--he indicated his shabby, travel-stained dress by a gesture--"look at me; I'm little better than a tramp, you know. Why--God bless your simple heart, sir--I'm even in hiding." "In hiding?" echoed the captain.