of irritation, as he pushed by the
doctor. He paused rather abruptly when his eyes met Jack's. A faint
flush, appearing in Jack's cheeks, only emphasized his wanness and the
whiteness of his neck and chin and forehead.

"Well, Jack, right as rain, they say! I knew you would come out all
right! It was in the blood that--" and the rest of John Wingfield, Sr.'s
speech fell away into inarticulateness.

It was a weak, emaciated son, this son whom he saw in contrast to the one
who had entered his office unannounced one morning; and yet the father
now felt that same indefinable radiation of calm strength closing his
throat that he had felt then. Jack was looking steadily in his father's
direction, but through him as through a thin shadow and into the
distance. He smiled, but very faintly and very meaningly.

"Father, you will keep the bargain I have made," he said, as if this were
a thing admitting of no dispute. "It is fair to the other one, isn't it?
Yes, we have found the truth at last, haven't we? And the truth makes it
all clear for him and for you and for me."

"You mean--it is all over--you stay out here for good--you--" said John
Wingfield, Sr. gropingly.

Then another figure appeared in the doorway and Jack's eyes returned from
the distances to rest on it fondly. In response to an impulse that he
could not control, Peter Mortimer was peering timidly into the sick-room.

"Why, Peter!" exclaimed Jack, happily. "Come farther in, so I can see
more of you than the tip of your nose."

After a glance of inquiry at the doctor, which received an affirmative
nod, Peter ventured another step.

"So it's salads and roses, is it, Peter?" Jack continued. "Well, I think
you may telegraph any time, now, that the others can come as soon as they
are ready and their places are filled."

Thus John Wingfield, Sr. had his answer; thus the processes of fate that
Dr. Bennington had said were in the younger man had worked out their end.
Under the spur of a sudden, powerful resolution, the father withdrew. In
the living-room he met Jasper Ewold. The two men paused, facing each
other. They were alone with the frank, daring features from Velasquez's
brush and with the "I give! I give!" of the Sargent, both reflecting the
afterglow of sunset; while the features of the living--John Wingfield,
Sr.'s, in stony anger, and Jasper Ewold's, serene in philosophy--told
their story without the touch of a painter's genius.

"You have stolen my son