in his eyes. His jaw had a bluish luster.

"Arthur!" The word was scarcely a whisper. It seemed choked up quietly,
as if it had been repeated time and again on his thin lips.

Arthur Duryea felt the kindliness of those eyes go through him, and then
he was in his father's embrace.

Later, when these two grown men had regained their outer calm, they
closed the door and went into the drawing-room. The elder Duryea held
out a humidor of fine cigars, and his hand shook so hard when he held
the match that his son was forced to cup his own hands about the flame.
They both had tears in their eyes, but their eyes were smiling.

Henry Duryea placed a hand on his son's shoulder. "This is the happiest
day of my life," he said. "You can never know how much I have longed for
this moment."

Arthur, looking into that glance, realized, with growing pride, that he
had loved his father all his life, despite any of those things which had
been cursed against him. He sat down on the edge of a chair.

"I--I don't know how to act," he confessed. "You surprize me, Dad.
You're so different from what I had expected."

A cloud came over Doctor Duryea's features. "What _did_ you expect,
Arthur?" he demanded quickly. "An evil eye? A shaven head and knotted
jowls?"

"Please, Dad--no!" Arthur's words clipped short. "I don't think I ever
really visualized you. I knew you would be a splendid man. But I thought
you'd look older, more like a man who has really suffered."

"I have suffered, more than I can ever describe. But seeing you again,
and the prospect of spending the rest of my life with you, has more than
compensated for my sorrows. Even during the twenty years we were apart I
found an ironic joy in learning of your progress in college, and in your
American game of football."

"Then you've been following my work?"

"Yes, Arthur; I've received monthly reports ever since you left me. From
my study in Paris I've been really close to you, working out your
problems as if they were my own. And now that the twenty years are
completed, the ban which kept us apart is lifted for ever. From now on,
son, we shall be the closest of companions--unless your Aunt Cecilia has
succeeded in her terrible mission."

* * * * *

The mention of that name caused an unfamiliar chill to come between the
two men. It stood for something, in each of them, which gnawed their
minds like a malignancy. But to the younger Duryea, in hi