expect you to tell your own name--though I can learn that easily
enough."

"Easily enough, to be sure," said the man on the bed. "Ask Stewart. He
knows only too well."

The Irishman scowled. And after a moment he said:

"I don't know any Stewart."

But at that Ste. Marie gave a laugh, and a tinge of red came over the
Irishman's cheeks.

"And so, to save Captain Stewart the trouble," continued the wounded
man, "I'll tell you my name with pleasure. I don't know why I shouldn't.
It's Ste. Marie."

"What?" cried O'Hara, hoarsely. "What? Say that again!"

He came forward a swift step or two into the room, and he stared at the
man on the bed as if he were staring at a ghost.

"Ste. Marie?" he cried, in a whisper. "It's impossible! What are you,"
he demanded, "to Gilles, Comte de Ste. Marie de Mont-Perdu? What are you
to him?"

"He was my father," said the younger man; "but he is dead. He has been
dead for ten years."

He raised his head, with a little grimace of pain, to look curiously
after the Irishman, who had all at once turned away across the room and
stood still beside a window with bent head.

"Why?" he questioned. "What about my father? Why did you ask that?"

O'Hara did not answer at once, and he did not stir from his place by the
window, but after a while he said:

"I knew him.... That's all."

And after another space he came back beside the bed, and once more
looked down upon the young man who lay there. His face was veiled,
inscrutable. It betrayed nothing.

"You have a look of your father," said he. "That was what puzzled me a
little. I was just saying to--I was just thinking that there was
something familiar about you.... Ah, well, we've all come down in the
world since then. The Ste. Marie blood, though. Who'd have thought it?"

The man shook his head a little sorrowfully, but Ste. Marie stared up at
him in frowning incomprehension. The pain had dulled him somewhat. And
presently O'Hara again moved toward the door. On the way he said:

"I'll bring or send you something to eat--not too much. And later on
I'll give you a sleeping-powder. With that head of yours you may have
trouble in getting to sleep. Understand, I'm doing this for your
father's son, and not because you've any right yourself to
consideration."

Ste. Marie raised himself with difficulty on one elbow.

"Wait!" said he. "Wait a moment!" and the other halted just inside the
door. "You seem to have known my father," said Ste.