usiness affairs. He had seemed more than usually eager at times to
see me or to see my daughter; and at other times he had seemed to avoid
us and keep away. I have had the feeling of late, though I could not
give any actual reason for it except Corvet's manner and look, that the
disturbance which had oppressed him for twenty years was culminating in
some way. That culmination seems to have been reached three days ago,
when he wrote summoning you here. Henry Spearman, whom I asked about
you when I learned you were coming, had never heard of you; Mr.
Corvet's servant had never heard of you....

"Is there anything in what I have told you which makes it possible for
you to recollect or to explain?"

Alan shook his head, flushed, and then grew a little pale. What
Sherrill told him had excited him by the coincidences it offered
between events in Benjamin Corvet's life and his own; it had not made
him "recollect" Corvet, but it had given definiteness and direction to
his speculations as to Corvet's relation to himself.

Sherrill drew one of the large chairs nearer to Alan and sat down
facing him. He felt in an inner pocket and brought out an envelope;
from the envelope he took three pictures, and handed the smallest of
them to Alan. As Alan took it, he saw that it was a tintype of himself
as a round-faced boy of seven.

"That is you?" Sherrill asked.

"Yes; it was taken by the photographer in Blue Rapids. We all had our
pictures taken on that day--Jim, Betty, and I. Mr. Welton"--for the
first time Alan consciously avoided giving the title "Father" to the
man in Kansas--"sent one of me to the 'general delivery' address of the
person in Chicago."

"And this?"

The second picture, Alan saw, was one that had been taken in front of
the barn at the farm. It showed Alan at twelve, in overalls and
barefooted, holding a stick over his head at which a shepherd dog was
jumping.

"Yes; that is Shep and I--Jim's and my dog, Mr. Sherrill. It was taken
by a man who stopped at the house for dinner one day; he liked Shep and
wanted a picture of him; so he got me to make Shep jump, and he took
it."

"You don't remember anything about the man?"

"Only that he had a camera and wanted a picture of Shep."

"Doesn't it occur to you that it was your picture he wanted, and that
he had been sent to get it? I wanted your verification that these
earlier pictures were of you, but this last one is easily recognizable."

Sherrill