“And you tell me, Alec,” he blazed out on hearing the details, “that the fellow never appeared until the dinner was all over and then came in roaring drunk?”

“Well, sah, I ain’t yered nothin’ ‘bout de roarin’, but he suttinly was ’how-come-ye-so’—­fer dey couldn’t git ’im upstairs ’less dey toted him on dere backs.  Marse George Temple gin him his own baid an’ sot up mos’ ob de night, an’ dar he stayed fur fo’ days till he come to.  Dat’s what Todd done tol’ me, an’ I reckon Todd knows.”

The colonel was in his den when this conversation took place.  He was generally to be found there since the duel.  Often his wife, or Alec, or some of his neighbors would surprise him buried in his easy-chair, an unopened book in his hand, his eyes staring straight ahead as if trying to grasp some problem which repeatedly eluded him.  After the episode at the club he became more absorbed than ever.  It was that episode, indeed, which had vexed him most.  Not that St. George’s tongue-lashing worried him—­nor did Harry’s blank look of amazement linger in his thoughts.  St. George, he had to confess to himself as he battled with the questions, was the soul of honor and had not meant to insult him.  It was Temple’s love for Harry which had incited the quixotic onslaught, for, as he knew, St. George dearly loved the boy, and this in itself wiped all resentment from the autocrat’s heart.  As to Harry’s attitude toward himself, this he continued to reason was only a question of time.  That young upstart had not learned his lesson yet—­a harsh lesson, it was true, and one not understood by the world at large—­but then the world was not responsible for his son’s bringing up.  When the boy had learned it, and was willing to acknowledge the error of his ways, then, perhaps, he might kill the fatted calf—­that is, of course, if the prodigal should return on all fours and with no stilted and untenable ideas about his rights—­ideas that St. George, of course, was instilling into him every chance he got.

So far, however, he had had to admit to himself that while he had kept steady watch of the line of hills skirting his mental horizon, up to the present moment no young gentleman in a dilapidated suit of clothes, inverted waist measure, and lean legs had shown himself above the sky line.  On the contrary, if all reports were true—­and Alec omitted no opportunity to keep him advised of Marse Harry’s every movement—­the young Lord of Moorlands was having the time of his life, even if his sweetheart had renounced him and his father forced him into exile.  Not only had he found a home and many comforts at Temple’s—­being treated as an honored guest alongside of such men as Kennedy and Latrobe, Pancoast, and the others, but now that St. George had publicly declared him to be his heir, these distinctive marks of his approbation were likely to continue.  Nor could he interfere, even if he wished to—­which, of course, he did not, and never could so long as he lived. ...