“What!” said Randolph.  “Give up the property, the title, the family honor, the wrong done to your reputation, the punishment”—­He hesitated, fearing he had gone too far.

Captain Dornton withdrew his pipe from his mouth with a gesture of caution, and holding it up, said:  “Steady, lad.  We’ll come to that by and by.  As to the property and title, I cut and run from them ten years ago.  To me they meant only the old thing—­the life of a country gentleman, the hunting, the shooting, the whole beastly business that the land, over there, hangs like a millstone round your neck.  They meant all this to me, who loved adventure and the sea from my cradle.  I cut the property, for I hated it, and I hate it still.  If I went back I should hear the sea calling me day and night; I should feel the breath of the southwest trades in every wind that blew over that tight little island yonder; I should be always scenting the old trail, lad, the trail that leads straight out of the Gate to swoop down to the South Seas.  Do you think a man who has felt his ship’s bows heave and plunge under him in the long Pacific swell—­just ahead of him a reef breaking white into the lagoon, and beyond a fence of feathery palms—­cares to follow hounds over gray hedges under a gray November sky?  And the society?  A man who’s got a speaking acquaintance in every port from Acapulco to Melbourne, who knows every den and every longshoreman in it from a South American tienda to a Samoan beach-comber’s hut,—­what does he want with society?” He paused as Randolph’s eyes were fixed wonderingly on the first sign of emotion on his weather-beaten face, which seemed for a moment to glow with the strength and freshness of the sea, and then said, with a laugh:  “You stare, lad.  Well, for all the Dorntons are rather proud of their family, like as not there was some beastly old Danish pirate among them long ago, and I’ve got a taste of his blood in me.  But I’m not quite as bad as that yet.”

He laughed, and carelessly went on:  “As to the family honor, I don’t see that it will be helped by my ripping up the whole thing and perhaps showing that Bill was a little too previous in identifying me.  As to my reputation, that was gone after I left home, and if I hadn’t been the legal heir they wouldn’t have bothered their heads about me.  My father had given me up long ago, and there isn’t a man, woman, or child that wouldn’t now welcome Bill in my place.”

“There is one who wouldn’t,” said Randolph impulsively.

“You mean Caroline Avondale?” said Captain Dornton dryly.

Randolph colored.  “No; I mean Miss Eversleigh, who was with your brother.”

Captain Dornton reflected.  “To be sure!  Sibyl Eversleigh!  I haven’t seen her since she was so high.  I used to call her my little sweetheart.  So Sybby remembered Cousin Jack and came to find him?  But when did you meet her?” he asked suddenly, as if this was the only detail of the past which had escaped him, fixing his frank eyes upon Randolph.