chief over
swarthy brows, turning the handle of a barrel organ in the London
streets. Instinct had been right in its promptings to assume an Italian
name; but the irony of it was of the quality that makes for humour in
hell. And his very Christian name--Paul--the exotic name which Polly
Kegworthy would not have given to a brat of hers--was but a natural one
for a Silas to give his son, a Silas born of generations of evangelical
peasants. His eyes rested on the photograph of his Princess. She, first
of all, was gone with the Vision. An adventurer he had possibly been;
but an adventurer of romance, carried high by his splendid faith, and
regarding his marriage with the Princess but as a crowning of his
romantic destiny. But now he beheld himself only as a base-born
impostor. His Princess was gone from his life. Death was in his heart.

He saw his familiar, luxurious room as in a dream, and Jane,
anxious-eyed, looking into the fire, and Barney Bill a little way off,
clutching his hard felt hat against his body; but his eyes were fixed
on the strange, many-passioned, unbalanced man who claimed to be--nay,
who was--his father.

"When I first met you that night my heart went out to you," he was
saying. "It overflowed in thankfulness to God that He had delivered you
out of the power of the Dog, and in His inscrutable mercy had condoned
that part of my sin as a father and had set you in high places."

With the fringe of his brain Paul recognized, for the first time, how
he brought into ordinary talk the habits of speech acquired in
addressing a Free Zionist congregation.

"It was only the self-restraint," Silas continued, "taught me by bitter
years of agony and a message from God that it was part of my punishment
not to acknowledge you as my son--"

"And what I told you, and what Jane told you about him," said Barney
Bill. "Remember that, Silas."

"I remember it--it was these influences that kept me silent. But we
were drawn together, Paul." He bent forward in his chair. "You liked
me. In spite of all our differences of caste and creed--you liked me."

"Yes, I was drawn to you," said Paul, and a strange, unknown note in
his voice caused Jane to glance at him swiftly. "You seemed to be a man
of many sorrows and deep enthusiasms--and I admit I was in close
sympathy with you." He paused, not moving from his rigid attitude, and
then went on: "What you have told me of your sufferings--and I know,
with awful knowledge, the wo