d to be an engineer, and I went over to the Boston Institute of
Technology."

Mr. Fentolin nodded appreciatively.

"A magnificent profession," he murmured. "A healthy one, too, I should
judge from your appearance. You are a strong man, Mr. Hamel."

"I have had reason to be," Hamel rejoined. "During nearly the whole
of the time I have been abroad, I have been practically pioneering.
Building railways in the far West, with gangs of Chinese and Italians
and Hungarians and scarcely a foreman who isn't terrified of his job,
isn't exactly drawing-room work."

"You are going back there?" Mr. Fentolin asked, with interest.

Hamel shook his head.

"I have no plans," he declared. "I have been fortunate enough, or shall
I some day say unfortunate enough, I wonder, to have inherited a large
legacy."

Mr. Fentolin smiled.

"Don't ever doubt your good fortune," he said earnestly. "The longer I
live--and in my limited way I do see a good deal of life--the more
I appreciate the fact that there isn't anything in this world that
compares with the power of money. I distrust a poor man. He may mean to
be honest, but he is at all times subject to temptation. Ah! here is my
niece."

Mr. Fentolin turned towards the door. Hamel rose at once to his feet.
His surmise, then, had been correct. She was coming towards them very
quietly. In her soft grey dinner-gown, her brown hair smoothly brushed
back, a pearl necklace around her long, delicate neck, she seemed to him
a very exquisite embodiment of those memories which he had been carrying
about throughout the afternoon.

"Here, Mr. Hamel," his host said, "is a member of my family who has
been a deserter for a short time. This is Mr. Richard Hamel, Esther; my
niece, Miss Esther Fentolin."

She held out her hand with the faintest possible smile, which might have
been of greeting or recognition.

"I travelled for some distance in the train with Mr. Hamel this
afternoon, I think," she remarked.

"Indeed?" Mr. Fentolin exclaimed. "Dear me, that is very
interesting--very interesting, indeed! Mr. Hamel, I am sure, did not
tell you of his destination?"

He watched them keenly. Hamel, though he scarcely understood, was quick
to appreciate the possible significance of that tentative question.

"We did not exchange confidences," he observed. "Miss Fentolin only
changed into my carriage during the last few minutes of her journey.
Besides," he continued, "to tell you the truth, my ideas as