"Oh, you needn't keep your back against the bookcase: I'll leave the job for some luckier devil." A thought struck him. "By the way, I've promised to give Jean and Frank enough to keep them going. You'll see to that?" "I'll carry out the provisions made when you were in your right mind." "What provisions?" "The terms of your will." Mr. Walkingshaw looked at his son steadily and in silence. After a full minute under this stare Andrew began to grow uneasy. "There's to be no more nonsense, I warn you," he said. "You mean either to rob your brother and sister of their money, or revenge yourself by stopping their marriages? By Heaven, Andrew--" He broke off and plunged into meditation. Then his eyes began to smile, though his lips were now compressed. "Very well," he murmured. His son still felt a vague sense of apprehension. "Mind, you've got to stay abroad." "For ever?" "You must give me your word you won't come back for two years certain, and after that you lose your allowance if you land in Great Britain or Ireland." "Including the Channel Islands?" "Including them." "I see your game," smiled Heriot. "But I give you my word. Poor Jean, poor Frank--" "You're not even to write to them," interrupted Andrew. Mr. Walkingshaw stroked his chin meditatively. "I agree to that," he said. "Any more conditions?" The smile that prevailed in his discomfited parent's eye perturbed the junior partner. He warily scanned all possible loopholes. "You're not to communicate with Madge Dunbar." "God forbid!" said Heriot fervently. "Nor my aunt." "Bless her, poor soul; no fears of that." "I think that's all," said Andrew reluctantly. So long as those eyes continued to look at him like that, he desired to pile condition on condition. But the overwhelming advantages of being encumbered with no imagination occasionally--very occasionally--have compensating drawbacks. He could imagine nothing else to be guarded against. "Then I'd better pack and be off." "You had," said Andrew. Just as he was leaving the room, Heriot turned and asked-- "You've heard of changelings?" Andrew stared. "Do you not mind hearing of goblins that get put into cradles instead of the real babies? That accounts for you. Thank the Lord, I need never again claim the discredit of begetting you!" CHAPTER VIII A luggage-laden cab clattered over the granite cubes and passed out of the ring of tall mansions and the shadow of the stately trees within the garden. The career of Heriot Walkingshaw, W.S., was ended, and shocked respectability could lower again her up-rolled eyes and see nothing more outrageous than a prowling cat. May her troubles always end as happily! Undoubtedly, had the full facts been there and then made public, a statue of the junior partner (completely clad) would have adorned that decorous garden.