tion must
have expression in noise, but a sudden loud peal at the bell cut short
his harangue, and he and Patty stood in silence to know who it might be
who called so late. As it happened, it was no other than the lost man
himself. He was shown in according to wont and usage without previous
announcement, and entered gay and smiling, elate and tender.

As he looked from one to the other the expression of his face changed.
He moved quickly towards Patty, and took her hands in his.

'There's something the matter,' he said gently. 'You're in trouble!'

The old boy, glaring at him, growled, 'We are,' and snatching up his
overcoat, threw it over his arm, and slipped his hat upon his head with
a gesture which Philip took for one of defiance. As a matter of fact it
expressed no more than wrathful grief, but then gesture and expression
are hard to read unless you have the key to them.

'We'd better have it out, Phil,' said the old man, 'here and now. You've
turned gambler, and I've found you out.'

'No,' Phil answered, with an odd smile; 'I haven't turned gambler, I
assure you. You've heard that I've joined the Pigeon Trap? That's what
they call it in the City. I prefer to call it the Hawks' Roost. There
are too few pigeons go there to be plucked to justify the other title,
and I give you my word of honour, Mr. Brown, that I'm not one of them.'

The young man's air was candid and amused. There was an underlying
gravity beneath the smile, and for people who had believed in him as
devoutly as his two listeners it was hard to disbelieve him now.

'You've gone into the infernal hole,' said old Brown, more than half
abandoning suspicion, and yet inclined to leave it growlingly, as a dog
might surrender a bone he conceived himself to have a right to. 'What do
you want there?'

'I want to do a very important stroke of business there, sir,' Philip
answered. The smile quite disappeared from his eyes at this moment, and
he looked very grimly resolute. 'I will tell you this much,' he added,
'because you have a right to know it. I am in pursuit of a brace of
scoundrels there. I think I've salted the tail of one of 'em already.
I believe with all my heart, sir, that I'm going to clear my father's
character, and I would go into worse places than the Pigeon Trap if I
saw my way to doing that.'

Patty of course was clinging to him without disguise by this time,
anxious only to atone for having given an ear to any word against him,
ev