The unfortunate man raised his head from his hands, and the familiar eyes, the eyes that had smiled upon the boy’s childhood, but which smiled no more, tragic in the misery of a renunciation which was more bitter--but, alas! not honourable like death--turned towards the stern and angry boy with a strange look, not of appeal, but of surprise. The offender knew very well all that was involved to himself in what he had done. He knew that it cut him off as a living man from all knowledge of his family, from all possibility of reunion--that he was dead and worse, so far as old surroundings were concerned; but he was not prepared for his son’s stern condemnation. He had anticipated wonder, consternation--but, oh, surely some touch of pleasure in seeing him restored from the dead, some burst of welcome from Fred! He uncovered his face and looked with a ghastly astonishment at the son who thus cast him off without a word. “Maister Freddie, for God’s sake! think what you are saying. Speak a word to him!” “I have nothing to say,” said Fred. “I will make the truth known in a week from this time--if it is the truth. I will be no party to a fraud. I loved my father that died, and his memory, but I can be no party to a fraud. In a week’s time----” The stranger never said a word; he sat gazing with things unutterable in his eyes, wonder above all. His boy! it was cruel, barbarous, inhuman; but--this strange visitor did not condemn the youth. He looked at him with an inconceivable surprise--his boy--Fred! He did not make any protest, but sat up, strangely awakened--wondering: even the object of his visit fading in comparison with this shock for which he was not prepared. All this time there had been sounds of rushing footsteps and ringing of bells through the house, the commotion of some sudden event breaking into the quiet of the night. And then came a distant sound of Susie’s voice, calling: “Fred! Fred!” The young man’s heart was rent with passionate emotion, such as he had never known in his life before. “Nobody must come in here,” he said, “to find a stranger in the house. If my mother has been frightened, I will tell her. But not if I can help it. Now, the only thing remaining for me is to make the truth known--when----” He paused. He could not address that dreadful spectre directly; his heart was bitter within him at the man who had thus killed for ever his father’s memory, the ideal which he had cherished in his father’s name. “When----he has decided what to do.” There was a dreadful pause in Janet’s room when the young man went away. Then the stranger said in a musing tone: “So that’s what Fred has come to in a couple of years. You see, Janet, you have not been so successful as you thought.” “Oh, my man, oh, my bonnie man! the callant is just distracted with wonder and fear.”