and the listening lad
asked once, a trifle warningly:

"Are you not at all afraid, Margot, that this unknown father will be
different from your anticipations? Remember, though so close of kin,
you are still strangers."

"Why, Adrian! My mother loved him and my uncle. I love him, too,
unknowing; but I tell you now, this minute, if I found him all that
was bad and repulsive, I should still love him and all the more. So
love him that he would grow good again and forget all the evil he
must have seen in that evil place. For he is my father, my father."

"Have no fear, I only meant to try you. He is all that you dream and
more. He has the noblest face I ever looked on; yes, not even
excepting your uncle's."

"What? you--have seen him?"

"Yes. Yesterday;" at which she sat in silent wonder till he said: "Now
come. We're there!"

When they stepped out at the final station Adrian called for the
swiftest horses waiting possible fares, and burst in upon his sister's
presence with the demand, almost breathlessly spoken:

"Number 526, at once, Kate. This is Margot---- Ah! mother! Margot! The
money's found--Number 526--quick!"

The excitement was all his by then. The girl to whom this moment was
so much more eventful stood pale and quiet, with a luminous joy in her
blue eyes that was more pathetic than tears.

"Adrian, are you crazy? Upon my word, I almost believe you are!
Running away as you did last night and coming back again to-day, in
this wild fashion. What do you mean? Who is this--this young person?
And what in the world do you, can you, possibly, want of Number 526?"

He paid no attention to her many questions, nor even to his mother who
clutched his arm in extreme agitation. He had caught the tones of a
violin played softly, tenderly, and oh! so sadly.

"Yes, that's Number 526, since you wish to see him, though it's quite
against the rules and--he's practicing with his men----"

"Come, Margot. Come."

The player was in the little alcove behind the screen and palms, and
did not even look up as the two entered his presence, for his own soul
had floated far away from that dread place, on the strains of that
music which no prison bars could confine.

"Father!"

[Illustration: "MY FATHER! I HAVE COME"]

The music ceased, but only for an instant. Once the player had heard a
voice like that--clear, sweet, exquisitely modulated. The voice of the
wife he had loved, silent in death these many years. But the tone