The radiant smile on the sick man’s face blossomed into a laugh:  “Yes—­the best night that I have had since I was taken ill, and—­Where did you sleep, my son?”

“Me!—­Oh, I had a fine time—­long, well-ventilated room with two windows and private staircase; nice pine bedstead—­very comfortable place for this part of the town.”

St. George looked at him and his eyes filled.  His mind was neither on his own questions nor on Harry’s answers.

“Get a chair, Harry, and sit by me so I can look at you closer.  How fine and strong you are my son—­not like your father—­you’re like your mother.  And you’ve broadened out—­mentally as well as physically.  Pretty hard I tell you to spoil a gentleman—­more difficult still to spoil a Rutter.  But you must get that beard off—­it isn’t becoming to you, and then somebody might think you disguised yourself on purpose.  I didn’t know you at first, neither did Jemima—­and you don’t want anybody else to make that kind of a mistake.”

“My father did, yesterday—­” Harry rejoined quietly, dropping into Jemima’s chair.

St. George half raised himself from his bed:  “You have seen him?”

“Yes—­and I wish I hadn’t.  But I hunted everywhere for you and then got a horse and rode out home.  He didn’t know me—­that is, I’m pretty sure he didn’t—­but he cursed me all the same.  My mother and old Alec, I hope, will come in to-day—­but father’s chapter is closed forever.  I have been a fool to hope for anything else.”

“Drove you out!  Oh, no—­no!  Harry!  Impossible!”

“But he did—­” and then followed an account of all the wanderer had passed through from the time he had set foot on shore to the moment of meeting Todd and himself.

For some minutes St. George lay staring at the ceiling.  It was all a horrid, nightmare to him.  Talbot deserved nothing but contempt and he would get it so far as he was concerned.  He agreed with Harry that all reconciliation was now a thing of the past; the only solution possible was that Talbot was out of his senses—­the affair having undermined his reason.  He had heard of such cases and had doubted them—­he was convinced now that they could be true.  His answer, therefore, to Harry’s next question—­one about his lost sweetheart—­was given with a certain hesitation.  As long as the memory of Rutter’s curses rankled within him all reference to Kate’s affairs—­even the little he knew himself—­must be made with some circumspection.  There was no hope in that direction either, but he did not want to tell him so outright; nor did he want to dwell too long upon the subject.

“And I suppose Kate is married by this time, Uncle George,” Harry said at last in a casual tone, “is she not?” (He had been leading up to it rather skilfully, but there had been no doubt in his uncle’s mind as to his intention.) “I saw the house lighted up, night before last when I passed, and a lot of people about, so I thought it might be either the wedding or the reception.”  The question had left his lips as one shoots an arrow in the dark—­hit or miss—­as if he did not care which.  He too realized that this was no time to open wounds, certainly not in his uncle’s heart; and yet he could wait no longer.