He turned and staggered out of the room.  Now William Carstairs was a proud man and John Carstairs had offended him deeply.  He believed all that he had said to his brother, yet there had been developing a feeling of pity for him in his heart, and in his cold way he had sought to express it.  His magnanimity had been rejected with scorn.  He looked down at the scattered bills on the floor.  Characteristically—­for he inherited his father’s business ability without his heart—­he stooped over and picked them slowly up, thinking hard the while.  He finally decided that he would give his brother yet another chance for his father’s sake.  After all, they were brethren.  But the decision came too late.  John Carstairs had stood not on the order of his going, but had gone at once, none staying him.

William Carstairs stood in the outer door, the light from the hall behind him streaming out into the night.  He could see nothing.  He called aloud, but there was no answer.  He had no idea where his younger brother had gone.  If he had been a man of finer feeling or quicker perception, perhaps if the positions of the two had been reversed and he had been his younger brother, he might have guessed that John might have been found beside the newest mound in the churchyard, had one sought him there.  But that idea did not come to William, and after staring into the blackness for a long time, he reluctantly closed the door.  Perhaps the vagrant could be found in the morning.

No, there had been no father waiting for the prodigal at the end of the road, and what a difference it had made to that wanderer and vagabond!

II

We leave a blank line on the page and denote thereby that ten years have passed.  It was Christmas Eve, that is, it had been Christmas Eve when the little children had gone to bed.  Now midnight had passed and it was already Christmas morning.  In one of the greatest and most splendid houses on the avenue two little children were nestled all snug in their beds in a nursery.  In an adjoining room sound sleep had quieted the nerves of the usually vigilant and watchful nurse.  But the little children were wakeful.  As always, visions of Santa Claus danced in their heads.

They were fearless children by nature and had been trained without the use of bugaboos to keep them in the paths wherein they should go.  On this night of nights they had left the doors of their nursery open.  The older, a little girl of six, was startled, but not alarmed, as she lay watchfully waiting, by a creaking sound as of an opened door in the library below.  She listened with a beating heart under the coverlet; cause of agitation not fear, but hope.  It might be, it must be Santa Claus, she decided.  Brother, aged four, was close at hand in his own small crib.  She got out of her bed softly so as not to disturb Santa Claus, or—­more important at the time—­the nurse.  She had an idea that Saint Nicholas might not welcome a nurse, but she had no fear at all that he would not be glad to see her.