found the opening he desired. "I should think all this
literary work was rather a 'eavy strain."

"It does make you feel a bit muzzy sometimes, when you're at it from
morning to night."

"Is the game worth the candle? Is it worth it? Have you made your
fortune at it?"

"Not yet."

"Well--I gave you three years."

Keith smiled. "What did you give me them for? To make my fortune in?"

"To learn common-sense in."

Keith laughed. "It wasn't enough for that. You should have given me
three hundred, at the very least!"

The laugh was discouraging, and Isaac felt that he was on the wrong
tack.

"I'd give you as many as you like, if I could afford to wait. But I
consider I've waited long enough already."

"What were you waiting for?"

"For you to come back--"

Keith's face was radiant with innocent inquiry.

"--To come back into the business."

The light of innocence died out of the face as suddenly as it had
kindled.

"My dear father, I shall never come back. I thought I'd made that very
clear to you."

"You never made it clear--your behaviour to me. Not but what I 'ad an
idea, which perhaps I need not name. I've never asked what there was
at the bottom of that foolish business, and I've never blamed you for
it. If it made you act badly to me, I've reason to believe it kept you
out of worse mischief."

Keith felt a queer tightening at the heart. He understood that his
father was referring darkly to Lucia Harden. He was surprised to find
that even this remote and shadowy allusion was more than he could
bear. He must call him off that trail; and the best way of doing it
was to announce his engagement.

"As you seem to be rather mixed, father, I ought to tell you that I'm
engaged to be married. Have been for the last eighteen months."

"Married?" Isaac's face was tense with anxiety; for he could not tell
what this news meant for him; whether it would remove his son farther
from him, or bring him, beyond all expectation, near.

"May I ask who the lady is? Any of your fine friends in Devonshire?"

Keith was silent, tongue-tied with presentiment of the coming blow. It
came.

"I needn't ask. It's that--that Miss 'Arden. _I_'ve heard of her."

"As it happens it's somebody you haven't heard of. You may have seen
her, though--Miss Flossie Walker."

"No. I've never seen her, not to my knowledge. How long have you known
her?"

"Ever since I came here. She's one of the boarders."

"Ah-h. Has she any mea