Now, my father, as I have said, was tall; yet it seemed to me that the man who greeted us was taller, as he rose from the bed and stood between us and the barred dirty window.  By little and little I made out that he wore an orange-coloured dressing-gown, and on his head a Turk’s fez; that he had pushed back a table at which, seated on the bed, he had been writing; and that on the sill of the closed window behind him stood a geranium-plant, dry with dust and withering in the stagnant air of the room.  But as yet, since he rose with his back to the little light, I could not make out his features.  I marked, however, that he shook from head to foot.

My father bowed—­a very reverent and stately bow it was too—­regarded him for a moment, and, taking a pace backward to the door, called after the retreating turnkey, to whom he addressed some order in a tone to me inaudible.

“You are welcome, Sir John,” said the prisoner, as my father faced him again; “though to my shame I cannot offer you hospitality.”  He said it in English, with a thick and almost guttural foreign accent, and his voice shook over the words.

“I have made bold, sire, to order the remedy.”

“‘Sire!’” the prisoner took him up with a flash of spirit.  “You have many rights over me, Sir John, but none to mock me, I think.”

“As you have no right to hold me capable of it, in such a place as this,” answered my father.  “I addressed you in terms which my errand proves to be sincere.  This is my son Prosper, of whom I wrote.”

“To be sure—­to be sure.”  The prisoner turned to me and looked me over—­I am bound to say with no very great curiosity, and sideways, in the half light, I had a better glimpse of his features, which were bold and handsome, but dreadfully emaciated.  He seemed to lose the thread of his speech, and his hands strayed towards the table as if in search of something.  “Ah yes, the boy,” said he, vaguely.

The turnkey entering just then with two bottles of wine, my father took one from him and filled an empty glass that stood on the table.  The prisoner’s fingers closed over it.

“I have much to drown,” he explained, as, having gulped down the wine, he refilled his glass at once, knocking the bottle-neck on its rim in his clattering haste.  “Excuse me; you’ll find another glass in the cupboard behind you. . . .  Yes, yes, we were talking of the boy. . . .  Are you filled? . . .  We’ll drink to his health!”

“To your health, Prosper,” said my father, gravely, and drank.

“But, see here—­I received your letter right enough, and it sounds too good to be true.  Only “—­and into the man’s eyes there crept a sudden cunning—­“I don’t understand what you want of me.”

“You may think it much or little; but all we want—­or, rather, all my boy wants—­is your blessing.”

“So I gathered; and that’s funny, by God! My blessing—­mine—­and here!” He flung out a hand.  “I’ve had some strange requests in my time; but, damn me, if I reckoned that any man any longer wanted my blessing.”