“A bottle from your choicest bin, Claude!  Some of Mr. Bordley’s.  For he that was lost is found.”

The hundred questions I had longed to ask were forgotten.  A peace stole upon me that I had not felt since I had looked upon his face before.  The wine was brought by Mr. Claude, and opened, and it was mine host who broke the silence, and the spell.

“Your very good health, Mr. Richard,” he said; “and may you come to your own again!”

“I drink it with all my heart, Richard,” replied Captain Daniel.  But he glanced at me sadly, and his honest nature could put no hope into his tone.  “We have got him back again, Mr. Claude.  And God has answered our prayers.  So let us be thankful.”  And he sat down in silence, gazing at me in pity and tenderness, while Mr. Claude withdrew.  “I can give you but a sad welcome home, my lad,” he said presently, with a hesitation strange to him. “’Tis not the first bad news I have had to break in my life to your family, but I pray it may be the last.”  He paused.  I knew he was thinking of the black tidings he had once brought my mother.  “Richard, your grandfather is dead,” he ended abruptly.

I nodded wonderingly.

“What!” he exclaimed; “you have heard already?”

“Mr. Manners told me, in London,” I said, completely mystified.

“London!” he cried, starting forward.  “London and Mr. Manners!  Have you been to London?”

“You had my letters to Mr. Carvel?” I demanded, turning suddenly sick.

His eye flashed.

“Never a letter.  We mourned you for dead, Richard.  This is Grafton’s work!” he cried, springing to his feet and striking the table with his great fist, so that the dishes jumped.  “Grafton Carvel, the prettiest villain in these thirteen colonies!  Oh, we shall hang him some day.”

“Then Mr. Carvel died without knowing that I was safe?” I interrupted.

“On that I’ll lay all my worldly goods,” replied Captain Daniel, emphatically.  “If any letters came to Marlboro’ Street from you, Mr. Carvel never dropped eyes on ’em.”

“What a fool was I not to have written you!” I groaned.

He drew his chair around the table, and close to mine.

“Had the news that you escaped death been cried aloud in the streets, my lad, ’twould never have got to your grandfather’s ear,” he said, in lower tones.  “I will tell you what happened, tho’ I have it at second hand, being in the North, as you may remember.  Grafton came in from Kent and invested Marlboro’ Street.  He himself broke the news to Mr. Carvel, who took to his bed.  Leiden was not in attendance, you may be sure, but that quack-doctor Drake.  Swain sent me a message, and I killed a horse getting here from New York.  But I could no more gain admittance to your grandfather, Richard, than to King George the Third.  I was met in the hall by that crocodile, who told me with too many fair words that I could not see my old friend; that for the present Dr. Drake denied him everybody.  Then I damned Dr. Drake, and Grafton too.  And I let him know my suspicions.  He ordered me off, Richard—­from that house which has been my only home for these twenty years.”  His voice broke.