at a desk bending over a mass
of papers. The man pushed back a green shade which had protected his
eyes from the glare of a lamp and peered out at him.

It was his father!

The discovery was so unexpected and had come with such suddenness--it
was rarely in these later days that the colonel was to be found here in
the afternoon: he was either riding or receiving visitors--that Harry's
first thought was to shrink back out of sight, or, if discovered, to
make some excuse for his intrusion and retire. Then his mind changed and
he stepped boldly in. This was what he had come for and this was what he
would face.

"I have some China silks to sell," he said in his natural tone of voice,
turning his head so that while his goods were in sight his face would be
in shadow.

"Silks! I don't want any silks! Who allowed you to pass in here? Alec!"
He pushed back his chair and moved to the door. "Alec! Where the devil
is Alec! He's always where I don't want him!"

"I saw no one to ask, sir," Harry replied mechanically. His father's
appearance had sent a chill through him; he would hardly have known him
had he met him on the street. Not only did he look ten years older,
but the injury to his sight caused him to glance sideways at any one he
addressed, completely destroying the old fearless look in his eyes.

"You never waited to ask! You walk into my private office unannounced
and--" here he turned the lamp to see the better. "You're a sailor,
aren't you?" he added fiercely--a closer view of the intruder only
heightening his wrath.

"Yes, sir--I'm a sailor," replied Harry simply, his voice dying in his
throat as he summed up the changes that the years had wrought in the
colonel's once handsome, determined face--thinner, more shrunken, his
mustache and the short temple-whiskers almost white.

For an instant his father crumpled a wisp of paper he was holding
between his fingers and thumb; and then demanded sharply, but with a
tone of curiosity, as if willing the intruder should tarry a moment
while he gathered the information:

"How long have you been a sailor?"

"I am just in from my last voyage." He still kept in the shadow although
he saw his father had so far failed to recognize him. The silks had been
laid on a chair beside him.

"That's not what I asked you. How long have you been a sailor?" He was
scanning his face now as best he could, shifting the green shade that he
might see the better.

"I went to sea three ye