"You ought to have told me, sir," he stammered in his confusion. "It was unkind to take me at a disadvantage. Here have I been using liberties with the family's name, supposing I was talking to an utter stranger!" The frank expression of the young man's face, the pleasant look in his fine brown eyes, tended to reassure the landlord, even better than words. "You have not said a syllable of my family that I could take exception to," he freely said. "You knew my father: will you shake hands with me, John Bent, as his son?" "You are too good, sir; and I meant no harm by my gossip," said the landlord, meeting the offered hand. "You must be the son of Mr. Basil. It's a great many years since he went away, and I was but a youngster, but I remember him. Your face is nearly the same as his was, sir. The likeness was puzzling me beyond everything. I hope Mr. Basil is well, sir." "No," said the young man, "he is dead. And I have come over here, as his son and heir, to claim Greylands' Rest." It was even so. The facts were as young Anthony Castlemaine stated. And a short summary of past events must be given here. When Basil Castlemaine went abroad so many years ago, in his hot-blooded youth, he spent some of the first years roaming about: seeing the world, he called it. Later, circumstances brought him acquainted with a young English lady, whose friends lived in France, in the province of Dauphiné: which, as the world knows, is close on the borders of Italy. They had settled near a place called Gap, and were in commerce there, owning some extensive silk-mills. Basil Castlemaine, tired probably of his wandering life, and of being a beau garçon, married this young lady, put all the money he had left (it was a very tolerably good sum) into the silk-mills, and became a partner. There he had remained. He liked the climate; he liked the French mode of life; he liked the business he had engaged in. Not once had he re-visited England. He was by nature a most obstinate man, retaining anger for ever, and he would not give token of remembrance to the father and brothers who, in his opinion, had been too glad to get rid of him. No doubt they had. But, though he did not allow them to hear of him, he heard occasionally of them. An old acquaintance of his, who was the son of one Squire Dobie, living some few miles on the other side Stilborough, wrote to him every two years, or so, and gave him news. But this correspondence (if letters written only on one side could be called such, for all Tom Dobie ever received back was a newspaper, sent in token that his letter had reached its destination) was carried on en cachette; and Tom Dobie never disclosed it to living mortal, having undertaken not to do so. Some two years before the present period, Tom Dobie had died: his letters of course ceased, and it was by the merest accident that Basil Castlemaine heard of the death of his father. He was then himself too ill to return and put in