t brought counsel.

Clarifying his thoughts, Peter tried first to see where his duty lay.

To his parents, first of all, he decided, for he was a devoted son, and
all his life he had loved and revered both father and mother more than
most boys do. Julie, too, but, so far he had no reason to think she had
any special claim on him.

Well, then, what did his duty to his parents dictate?

Common sense said that they would far rather have their son with them
alive than to rest secure in the success of the book his father had
written.

But the book itself was, to his mind, quite outside the pale of common
sense, and could not be judged by any such standards.

Certain pages, special paragraphs in that book, stood out in his mind,
and he knew that never had there been such a fiasco as would ensue if
the long lost and deeply mourned hero of it should return! His return in
the spirit was so gloatingly related, so triumphantly averred, that his
return in the flesh would be a terrific anti-climax.

He remembered the gypsy's prophecy--how it had come true!

But the return, foretold by the second gypsy, was now verified in the
flesh and put to naught all the fake returns narrated in the book.

Much stress was laid, in his father's story, on the spiritual return
being what the gypsy meant. Now, Peter had proved that that prophecy
meant, if it meant anything at all, his return in the flesh.

Anyway, here he was, very much alive, and very uncertain what to do with
his live self.

Should he go away, out West, or to some distant place and start life
anew, under an assumed name, and leave his father to his delusion? Was
that his duty?

He was not necessary to his parents, either as a help to their support
or as a comfort to their hearts.

He did not do them the injustice to think that they had never mourned
for him, or that they had not missed him in the home. All this was fully
and beautifully set forth in the book.

But they had been compensated by the comfort and enjoyment afforded them
by their _seances_, and by the messages they continually received from
him!

And he could see no way, try as he would, that he could inform them of
his return without causing them dismay and distress.

For if they knew him to be alive he must take again his old place in the
home--and then what would his father be?

A laughing-stock, a crushed and crestfallen victim of the most
despicable sort of fraud!

It would never do. He couldn