fixed on the carpet.

"Did you know this before, Caesar?"

Aymer's face twitched. "Yes, always."

"Did--he--know?"

"Yes, apparently."

"You did not tell him?"

"No."

Christopher looked up sharply and met his eyes, and again he forgot
his own intimate trouble before the greater one.

"Thanks, Caesar," he said, dragging up a smile, "it would have been far
harder at your hand."

Then suddenly he sunk on his knees by Aymer's side, and hid his head
against the arm that had sheltered him as a child.

"They can't make me take it," he whispered, "even if I am his son. But
Caesar, Caesar, why didn't you tell me before?"

"I hoped you would never know. Did you never have any suspicion
yourself?"

"Never. It was the last thing I should have imagined."

"You have never asked me anything. You must sometimes have wondered
about yourself."

"I was quite content." Christopher spoke with shut teeth. Under no
provocation must Caesar know the falsehood that had lain so long in his
mind. He saw it in its full proportion now, and hated himself for his
blindness in harbouring so ugly a thought.

"We were never certain how much Peter knew and I've never known for
the past three years whether he meant to claim you or not."

"If you'd only told me, Caesar!"

"It was my one hope you should not know."

"I don't think I've earned that," he said reproachfully.

"It was myself, not you, I thought of. You've got to know the whole
thing now. Go and sit there in your old place and don't look at me
till I've finished."

So Aymer at last reached the moment when he must break the seals of
silence--that expected moment that had hung over him like some shadowy
fate as a foretaste of judgment, when he must retrace the painful
footsteps of his life across the black gulf from which he had climbed.
But as he turned his face to the darkness, there was light also on
the other side, and he forgot he had feared.

"Peter and I were friends, as you know. He was five years my senior,
but it did not make much difference. He was a worker, just as I was a
player. He had tremendous capabilities and he put all his big brain
into his work and when he wanted change he came to me. I represented
to him the reverse side of his strenuous life and he was oddly fond of
me. Before he was thirty he had well started his fortune as he raced
to wealth. I raced to ruin and found every inch of the road made easy
for me. Peter came into conflict with the so