"Just that," answered Applebo. "You might have known what to expect, if you were not altogether a fool. My mother was a young and beautiful woman, the only daughter of rich and noble parents, a favourite of the King. You were the son of a poor but respectable farmer, at the time engaged in the trade of boat-building. Is that not true...?" Heldstrom's lips moved, but no sound came from them. A terrible rage was gathering on his heavily bearded face. Applebo saw it, but continued in the same dispassionate tone: "You were years older than she, and you should have known better. You sold her uncle a yacht and sailed her one season for your client. My mother was aboard the boat a good deal, and so you met and became infatuated with one another. Then you eloped and were married, and brought her to America as a poor emigrant. Do you consider that to have been an act of affection...?" "Stop!" Heldstrom's voice was choked and strangling. "Not anudder vord! Dis iss not your affair...." "Pardon me, it is very much my affair ... seeing that I was the result of the folly! Of your blind selfishness! Do you think that I have had a happy life? It has been one long record of loneliness ... for I am not of the sort to make friends, readily! And there has been a good deal of terrible monotony about it, too! Not until Harold Applebo died and left me a small income, four years ago, did I commence really to live." Heldstrom's face was livid, but the devastating rage had left it. He swallowed once or twice. "Und you say I kick about der bill!" he growled. "Vat you vant, den? Somet'ing froom me?" A fierce gleam shot from the pale eyes of Applebo. Leaning forward, he shook his finger in Heldstrom's face: "No. I want nothing from you ... now that I know the sort of man you are! I did want a little paternal sympathy and interest and to feel that I was not entirely a stray spar washed from the wreck of two lives and left to drift where the current carried me! Now that I know you, I want nothing! Formerly, I thought that you might possibly contain a spark of paternal instinct. I thought, also, that you might welcome the thought of one of your own blood to be the companion of your declining years. It was for this that I have been following your schooner all summer long...." Heldstrom raised his massive head, which had been slightly drooping, and stared intently at his son. "You tell me it vas for me that you haf followed der _Shark_?" he demanded, harshly. "Yes. I wanted to learn precisely what I have learned this morning ... but not exactly in this way!" Applebo smiled ironically. "That was my whole object in trailing you about!" Heldstrom thrust himself suddenly forward. "You are a liar!" he almost shouted. [Illustration: "You are a liar!" he almost shouted] Applebo slightly recoiled. For an instant it seemed as though the older man were about to hurl himself upon him.