“Come, come, things are not as bad as all that,” said he, kindly. I looked stupidly at him for a moment. “Of course I know you’ve got one or two troublesome forms,” he continued. Then I winced. His conjecture hurt me horribly. “Oh, it’s nothing to do with my incompetence,” I interrupted. “What is it, then?” “My grandfather, two uncles, two nephews and a valet were drowned a day or two ago in the Mediterranean,” I answered, calmly. I have since been struck by the crudity of this announcement. It took my chief’s breath away. “I deeply sympathise with you,” he said at last. “Thank you,” said I. “A terrible catastrophe. No wonder it has upset you. Horrible! Six living human beings! Three generations of men!” “That’s just it,” said I. “Three generations of my family swept away, leaving me now at the head of it.” At this moment the chief’s wife came into the library with the morning paper in her hand. On seeing me she rushed forward. “Have you had bad news?” “Yes. Is it in the paper?” “I was coming to show my husband. The name is an uncommon one. I wondered if they might be relatives of yours.” I bowed acquiescence. The chief looked at the paragraph below his wife’s indicating thumb, then he looked at me as if I, too, had suffered a seachange. “I had no idea--” he said. “Why, now--now you are Sir Marcus Ordeyne!” “It sounds idiotic, doesn’t it?” said I, with a smile. “But I suppose I -am.” And so came my release from captivity. I was profoundly affected by the awful disaster, but it would be sheer hypocrisy if I said that I felt personal grief. I knew none of the dead, of whom I verily believe the valet was the worthiest man. My grandfather and uncles had ignored my existence. Not a helping hand had they stretched out to my widowed mother in her poverty, when one kindly touch would have meant all. They do not seem to have been a lovable race, the Ordeynes. What my father, the youngest son, was like, I have no idea, as he died when I was two years old, but my mother, who was somewhat stern and puritanical, spoke of him very much as she would have spoken of the prophet Joel, had he been a personal acquaintance. Seven years to-day have I been a free man. Feeling at peace with all the world I called this afternoon on my Aunt Jessica, Mrs. Ordeyne, who has borne me no malice for stepping into the place that should have been the inheritance of her husband and of her son. Rather has she devised to adopt me, to guide my ambitions and to point out my duties as the head of the house. If I refuse to be adopted, avoid ambitions and disclaim duties, the fault lies not with her good-will. She is a well-preserved worldly woman of fifty-five, and having begun to dye her hair in the peroxide of hydrogen era has not the curiosity to abandon the practice and see what colour will result. I wish I could like her. I can’t. She purrs. Some day I feel she will scratch. She received me graciously.