mer; yes, it was just
before the war; I remember your father prophesied it, and foretold its
course very accurately. Then we didn't see each other again until a
month ago--I had run down into Yorkshire for a couple of days and stood
waiting for a train at Northallerton. Someone came towards me, and
looked me in the face, then held out his hand without speaking; and it
was my old friend. He has become a man of few words."

"Yes, he talks very little," said Piers. "I've known him silent for two
or three days together."

"And what does he do with himself there among the moors? You don't know
Hawes," he remarked to the graciously attentive Mrs. Jacks. "A little
stony town at the wild end of Wensleydale. Delightful for a few months,
but very grim all the rest of the year. Has he any society there?"

"None outside his home, I think. He sits by the fire and reads Dante."

"Dante?"

"Yes, Dante; he seems to care for hardly anything else. It has been so
for two or three years. Editions of Dante and books about Dante crowd
his room--they are constantly coming. I asked him once if he was going
to write on the subject, but he shook his head."

"It must be a very engrossing study," remarked Mrs. Jacks, with her
most intelligent air. "Dante opens such a world."

"Strange!" murmured her husband, with his kindly smile. "The last thing
I should have imagined."

They were summoned to luncheon. As they entered the dining-room, there
appeared a young man whom Mr. Jacks greeted warmly.

"Hullo, Arnold! I am so glad you lunch here to-day. Here is the son of
my old friend Jerome Otway."

Arnold Jacks pressed the visitor's hand and spoke a few courteous words
in a remarkably pleasant voice. In physique he was quite unlike his
father; tall, well but slenderly built, with a small finely-shaped
head, large grey-blue eyes and brown hair. The delicacy of his
complexion and the lines of his figure did not suggest strength, yet he
walked with a very firm step, and his whole bearing betokened habits of
healthy activity. In early years he had seemed to inherit a very feeble
constitution; the death of his brother and sister, followed by that of
their mother at an untimely age, left little hope that he would reach
manhood; now, in his thirtieth year, he was rarely on troubled the
score of health, and few men relieved from the necessity of earning
money found fuller occupation for their time. Some portion of each day
he spent at the offices of