xchanged a handclasp with
his only son.

"You're coming right back from Paris?"

"Next steamer. I've a lot of work on hand, thank goodness! But that
only puts me under heavier obligations to the Princess Mistchenka."

"Yes, I suppose so. Anything but ingratitude, Jim. It's the vilest
vice of 'em all. They say it's in the Irish blood--ingratitude. They
must never prove it by a Neeland. Well, my boy--I'm not lonesome, you
understand; busy men have no time to be lonesome--but run up, will
you, when you get back?"

"You bet I will."

"I'll show you a brace of promising pups. They stand rabbits, still,
but they won't when the season is over."

"Blue Bird's pups?"

"Yes. They take after her."

"Fine! I'll be back for the shooting, anyway. Many broods this
season?"

"A fair number. It was not too wet."

For a moment they lingered, smiling at each other, then Jim gave his
father's hand a quick shake, picked up his suitcase, turned.

"I'll take the runabout, dad. Someone from the Orangeville garage will
bring it over in the morning."

He went out, pushed his way among the leaping dogs to the garage,
threw open the doors, and turned on the electric light.

A slim and trim Snapper runabout stood glistening beside a larger car
and two automobile trucks. He exchanged his straw hat for a cap;
placed hat and suitcase in the boot; picked up a flash light from the
work-table, and put it into his pocket, cranked the Snapper, jumped
in, ran it to the service entrance, where his father stood ready to
check the dogs and close the gates after him.

"Good-bye, dad!" he called out gaily.

"Good-bye, my son."

The next instant he was speeding through the starry darkness,
following the dazzling path blazed out for him by his headlights.

CHAPTER XV

THE LOCKED HOUSE

From the road, just before he descended to cross the bridge into
Brookhollow, he caught a gleam of light straight ahead. For a moment
it did not occur to him that there was anything strange in his seeing
a light in the old Carew house. Then, suddenly, he realised that a
light ought not to be burning behind the lowered shades of a house
which was supposed to be empty and locked.

His instant impulse was to put on his brakes then and there, but the
next moment he realised that his car must already have been heard and
seen by whoever had lighted that shaded lamp. The car was already on
the old stone bridge; the Carew house stood directly behind the