Again the man’s eyes roamed over the room, the bareness of which seemed still to impress him.  Then he asked simply:  “Where will a letter reach him?”

“I can’t say exactly.  I thought he had gone to Virginia—­but he doesn’t answer any of my communications.”

A look of suspicion crept into the intruder’s eyes.

“You’re not trying to deceive me, are you?  It is very important that I should see Mr. Temple, and at once.”  Then his manner altered.  “You’ve forgotten me, Mr. Pawson, but I have not forgotten you—­my name is Rutter.  I lived here with Mr. Temple before I went to sea, three years ago.  I am just home—­I left the ship an hour ago.  I’ll sit down if you don’t mind—­I’ve still got my sea-legs on and am a little wobbly.”

Pawson twisted his thin body and bent his neck, his eyes glued to the speaker’s face.  There was not a trace of young Harry in the features.

“Well, you don’t look like him,” he replied incredulously—­“he was slender—­not half your size, and—­”

“Yes—­I don’t blame you.  I am a good deal heavier; may be too a beard makes some change in a man’s face.  But you don’t really doubt me, do you?  Have you forgotten the bills that man Gadgem brought in?—­the five hundred dollars due Slater, and the horse Hampson sold me—­the one I shot?” and one of his old musical laughs rose to his lips.

Pawson sprang forward and seized the intruder’s hand.  He would recognize that laugh among a thousand: 

“Yes—­I know you now!  It’s all come back to me,” he cried joyously.  “But you gave me a terrible start, Mr. Rutter.  I thought you had come to clear up what was left.  Oh!—­but I am glad you are back.  Your uncle—­you always called him so, I remember—­your uncle has had an awful hard time of it—­had to sell most of his things—­terrible—­terrible!  And then, too, he has grieved so over you—­asking me, sometimes two or three times a day, for letters from you—­asking me questions and worrying over your not coming and not answering.  Oh, this is fine.  Now may be we can save the situation.  You don’t mind my shaking your hand again, do you?  It’s so good to know there is somebody who can help.  I have been all alone so far except Gadgem—­who has been a treasure.  You remember him.  Why didn’t you let Mr. Temple know you were coming?”

“I couldn’t.  I have been up in the mountains of Brazil, and coming home went ashore—­got wrecked.  These clothes I bought from a sailor,” and he opened his rough jacket the wider.

“Yes—­that’s exactly what I heard him say—­that’s what he thought—­that is, that you were where you couldn’t write, although I never heard him say anything about shipwreck.  I remember his telling Mr. Willits and Miss Seymour that same thing the morning he left—­that you couldn’t write.  They came to see him off.”

Harry edged his chair nearer the fireplace and propped one shoe on the fender as if to dry it, although the night was fair.  The mention of Kate’s and her suitor’s names had sent the blood to his head and he was using the subterfuge in the effort to regain control of himself before Pawson should read all his secrets.