ancient title. Marrying
again could not mend the matter. What else they did to mend or try
to mend it, Madame de Kries professed not to know. I myself do not
know either. There is only one thing to say. They could not alter
the date of the death; they could not alter the date of the
wedding; perhaps it would seem rather more possible to alter the
date of the birth. At any rate, that is no business of mine. I have
set the story down because it seemed a curious and interesting
episode, but it is nothing to me who succeeds or ought to succeed
to this or that title or estate. For my own part, I am inclined to
hope that the baby's prospects in life will not be wrecked by the
absurd Russian habit of using the Old Style.

To return to serious questions, the customs-barrier between----"

Mr Jenkinson Neeld laid down his friend's Journal and leant back in his
chair.

"Really!" he murmured to himself. "Really, really!"

Frowning in a perplexed fashion, he pushed the manuscript aside and
twiddled the blue pencil between his fingers. The customs-barrier of
which Josiah Cholderton was about to speak had no power to interest him.
The story which he had read interested him a good deal; it was an odd
little bit of human history, a disastrous turn of human fortunes.
Besides, Mr Neeld knew his London. He shook his head at the Journal
reprovingly, rose from his chair, went to his book-case, and took down a
Peerage. A reminiscence was running in his head. He turned to the
letter T (Ah, those hollowly discreet, painfully indiscreet initials of
Josiah Cholderton's! Mysteries perhaps in Baxton, Yorks, but none in
Pall Mall!) and searched the pages. This was the entry at which his
finger stopped--or rather part of the entry, for the volume had more to
say on the family than it is needful either to believe or to repeat:--

"Tristram of Blent--Adelaide Louisa Aimee, in her own right
Baroness--23rd in descent, the barony descending to heirs general.
Born 17th December 1853. Married first Sir Randolph Edge, Bart.--no
issue. Secondly, Captain Henry Vincent Fitzhubert (late Scots
Guards), died 1877. Issue--one son (and heir) Hon. Henry Austen
Fitzhubert Tristram, born 20th July 1875. The name of Tristram was
assumed in lieu of Fitzhubert by Royal Licence 1884. Seat--Blent
Hall, Devon----"

Here Mr Neeld laid down the book. He had seen what he w