ther men, must have kith and kin. The style of
the picture was too modern for it to be his mother's. There were such
things as sisters; but this did not look like Octon's stock. An old
picture of a bygone sweetheart--that held the field as the likeliest
explanation; well, except the one profanely offered by common sense.
Octon was, to and for me, so much a part of Jenny's life and
surroundings that it was genuinely difficult to realize him as a man
with other belongings or associations; yet I could not but recognize
that in all probability he had many--perhaps some apart from those which
he might chance to have inherited.

Suddenly, through the wall, I heard a wail--surely I heard a little sob?
The picture was instantly forgotten. I stood intensely awake, alert,
watchful. If that sound came again, I determined that I would break in
on their conference. For minutes I waited, but the sound came no more. I
flung myself into a chair by the fire and began to smoke. I fell into a
meditation. No further sound came to break it; the murmur of the river
already grew familiar.

I heard a door open; the next moment they were in the room with me.

"What a time we've kept you! Have you been very bored?" asked Jenny.

Her words and her tone were light, but her face was as I had never seen
it. It was drawn with the fatigue of deep feeling: she had been
struggling; if I did not err, her eyes bore signs of crying--I had never
known her cry. At that moment I think I knew to the full that Octon was,
for good or evil, a great thing in her life. How could it be for good?
She herself, she alone, must bear the burden of answering that question.

But he, standing behind her, wore an unmistakable air of victory. So
confident was it, and so assured the whole aspect of his dominant
figure, that I prepared myself to hear that the verdict of the morning
was reversed and that the neighborhood--and all that meant--were to go
hang. Yet his first words contradicted both my forecast and his own
appearance. He spoke in a chafing tone.

"Behold in me, Austin, the Banished Duke! Never again may I tread the
halls of Breysgate--at any rate, not for the present! I have offended a
proud baronet--a belted earl demands my expulsion. And my liege lady
banishes me!"

"Don't be so silly," said Jenny--but gently, ever so gently, and with a
smile.

"Serves you right, in my opinion," said I.

"I suppose so," he answered, "and I bear no malice. I'm glad Aspeni