ve in such a matter. There was one thing Fisbee's shame had made
the old man unable not to suppress when he told Parker his story; the
wraith of a torrid palate had pursued him from his youth, and the days
of drink and despair from which Harkless had saved him were not the
first in his life. Meredith wondered as much as did Harkless where
Fisbee had picked up the journalistic "young relative" who signed his
extremely business-like missives in such a thundering hand. It was
evident that the old man was grateful to his patron, but it did not
occur to Meredith that Fisbee's daughter might have an even stronger
sense of gratitude, one so strong that she could give all her young
strength to work for the man who had been good to her father.

There came a day in August when Meredith took the convalescent from the
hospital in a victoria, and installed him in his own home. Harkless's
clothes hung on his big frame limply; however, there was a drift of
light in his eyes as they drove slowly through the pretty streets of
Rouen. The bandages and splints and drugs and swathings were all gone
now, and his sole task was to gather strength. The thin face was sallow
no longer; it was the color of evening shadows; indeed he lay among the
cushions seemingly no more than a gaunt shadow of the late afternoon,
looking old and gray and weary. They rolled along abusing each other,
John sometimes gratefully threatening his friend with violence.

The victoria passed a stone house with wide lawns and an inhospitable
air of wealth and importunate rank; over the sward two peacocks swung,
ambulating like caravals in a green sea; and one expected a fine lady to
come smiling and glittering from the door. Oddly enough, though he
had never seen the place before, it struck Harkless with a sense of
familiarity. "Who lives there?" he asked abruptly.

"Who lives there? On the left? Why that--that is the Sherwood place,"
Meredith answered, in a tone which sounded as if he were not quite sure
of it, but inclined to think his information correct. Harkless relapsed
into silence.

Meredith's home was a few blocks further up the same street; a capacious
house in the Western fashion of the Seventies. In front, on the lawn,
there was a fountain with a leaping play of water; maples and shrubbery
were everywhere; and here and there stood a stiff sentinel of Lombardy
poplar. It was all cool and incongruous and comfortable; and, on the
porch, sheltered from publicity