n in a sullen tone, "if I did, what harm in
saying it here with not a soul but you around? And my feeling is," he
went on, "that this broken-off wedding is a judgment for his
grandfather's--." He hesitated.

"When you learned it by accident, Nathan," returned his father, "you
swore to satisfy me, that you would never speak the word in connection
with him. Who knows what person may be round?" And he glanced cautiously
about him. Stephen half resolved to confront him and force him to tell
this secret. But the very quality in himself which the men had been
discussing held him back until the opportunity had passed. "No, I don't
want you to name it at all, Nathan. That is what you swore," continued
the old man.

"You have said enough about it," retorted the younger. "I will keep my
word, of course; you know that." His tone was loud with anger.

"Yes, yes, I know," said his companion, "But, you see, I was fond of the
young master if he was a bit wild; he was a fine, free gentleman, though
he changed very much after this--this accident and his coming over to
the Colonies, which wasn't no ways suited to him like London, only he
found it a good place to get rich in. You see, Nathan, it all happened
this way; he told me about it his own self with tears in his eyes, as I
might say, for his family,--he--."

But it was in vain that Stephen strained his ears, the voices that had
not been drowned in the noise of footsteps had been growing fainter with
distance, and now were lost altogether.

So there had been something in the family, thought Stephen, that he knew
nothing about, something that his grandfather had done which this man,
the son of his grandfather's butler, considered had brought down
vengeance on Katie and himself as the grandchildren. The very suggestion
oppressed him in this land of the Puritans, although he told himself
that he believed neither in the vengeance nor even in the crime itself.
But he had not dreamed of anything, anything at all, which had even
shadowed the fair fame of the Archdales. Did his father know of it?
Nothing that Stephen had ever seen in him looked like such knowledge,
but that did not make the son quite sure, for the old butler's remark
about the Colonel's suavity was just; his elaborate manners made Stephen
almost brusque at times, and aroused a secret antagonism in both, so
that they sometimes met one another with armor on, and Stephen's keen
thrust would occasionally penetrate the shiel