smile on his face it had worn when Christopher was first
introduced to him six years ago.

"I wonder why on earth they did that?" ruminated the Juggernaut.
"Cousin Charles is capable of any unworldly folly, but Aymer was a man
of the world once. It looks like colossal bluff."

And then the meaning of all this swept over Christopher's mind like a
wave of fire, scorching his soul, desecrating and humiliating the very
mainspring of his life.

Aymer's son! He knew Masters believed it as surely as if he had
blurted it out in his own unbearable way, and it was not to save him,
it was from no sense of decency Masters had not said it audibly.
Christopher longed to fling the unspoken lie back to him, to refuse
the collaboration of detail that the passing minutes crowded on his
notice. He put on speed; tried to outstrip the evil thought of it, to
think only of Caesar, the dear companion of his days, the steady
friend, the unobtrusive mentor and guide. But a thought he could not
outstrip slipped into his mind so insidiously and stealthily, he could
not tell how or whence it came.

"You only know Caesar; you never knew Aymer Aston of the silent past."

Faster and faster rushed the car in futile attempt to outpace the
whispered treason. The speed indicator stood at 40 and still mounted.

"I should like to remark," said Peter Masters thoughtfully, "that I
have not yet made my will and it would cause some inconvenience to a
vast number of people to have several millions left masterless."

"It's an open road," returned Christopher, "I know what I'm at. I
expect I enjoy life as much as you do."

He slowed down suddenly, however, to about twenty miles an hour to
pass an old woman in a donkey cart, and the hateful thought swept on
in advance apparently, for he overtook it again when their speed ran
up ten points.

Christopher had chosen a rather circuitous route which offered fewer
villages than the general high-road. It was a glorious day, the banks
were starry with primroses, and all the hedgerows, just bursting into
green rosettes, were hunting ground for birds innumerable.

Green emerald grass in water-meadows, fresh green growth on the
hillside, and red bud and green promise hung from every tree. The
crisp air whispered warnings of frosts still to come, but braced the
nerve and gladdened the heart nevertheless, and called imperiously to
youth to seek its kingdom. Christopher was at no pains to spare the
nerves of the mas