“Come in.”

The door opened to a Chinese servant bearing a piece of torn paper with a name written on it in lieu of a card.

Mrs. Horncastle took it, glanced at the name, and handed the paper back.

“There must be some mistake,” she said, “it do not know Mr. Steptoe.”

“No, but you know me all the same,” said a voice from the doorway as a man entered, coolly took the Chinese servant by the elbows and thrust him into the passage, closing the door upon him.  “Steptoe and Horncastle are the same man, only I prefer to call myself Steptoe here.  And I see you’re down on the register as ‘Horncastle.’  Well, it’s plucky of you, and it’s not a bad name to keep; you might be thankful that I have always left it to you.  And if I call myself Steptoe here it’s a good blind against any of your swell friends knowing you met your husband here.”

In the half-scornful, half-resigned look she had given him when he entered there was no doubt that she recognized him as the man she had come to see.  He had changed little in the five years that had elapsed since he entered the three partners’ cabin at Heavy Tree Hill.  His short hair and beard still clung to his head like curled moss or the crisp flocculence of Astrakhan.  He was dressed more pretentiously, but still gave the same idea of vulgar strength.  She listened to him without emotion, but said, with even a deepening of scorn in her manner:—­

“What new shame is this?”

“Nothing new,” he replied.  “Only five years ago I was livin’ over on the Bar at Heavy Tree Hill under the name of Steptoe, and folks here might recognize me.  I was here when your particular friend, Jim Stacy, who only knew me as Steptoe, and doesn’t know me as Horncastle, your husband,—­for all he’s bound up my property for you,—­made his big strike with his two partners.  I was in his cabin that very night, and drank his whiskey.  Oh, I’m all right there!  I left everything all right behind me—­only it’s just as well he doesn’t know I’m Horncastle.  And as the boy happened to be there with me”—­He stopped, and looked at her significantly.

The expression of her face changed.  Eagerness, anxiety, and even fear came into it in turn, but always mingling with some scorn that dominated her.  “The boy!” she said in a voice that had changed too; “well, what about him?  You promised to tell me all,—­all!”

“Where’s the money?” he said.  “Husband and wife are one, I know,” he went on with a coarse laugh, “but I don’t trust myself in these matters.”

She took from a traveling-reticule that lay beside her a roll of notes and a chamois leather bag of coin, and laid them on the table before him.  He examined both carefully.

“All right,” he said.  “I see you’ve got the checks made out ‘to bearer.’  Your head’s level, Conny.  Pity you and me can’t agree.”

“I went to the bank across the way as soon as I arrived,” she said, with contemptuous directness.  “I told them I was going over to Hymettus and might want money.”