t believe, my dear
Mrs. Jervase, that I have ever, in the whole course of my three-score
years, so far transgressed as to drive a lady from her own parlour,
until now.'

'We will go,' said Mrs. Jervase, and the General stepping to the door
threw it open, and stood for his hostess and his daughter to go by.
Irene looked first at young Polson Jervase with a glance of fear and
inquiry, and the young fellow responded to it only by a curt nod of the
head, as much as to say 'Go! 'She looked into her father's face as
she passed through the doorway, and the old man smiled down on her
reassuringly.

'This will all be over in a few minutes, dear,' he said, 'and then I
will send for you.' He closed the door gently, and tinned to face the
trio in the room.

'I have apologised to the ladies,' said Jervase, 'already; but I owe an
apology to you, General. I'm very sorry that my temper carried me back
to my old seafaring manners; but,' with a savage look at his cousin, 'a
coward's my loathing. I hate the sight of a coward worse than I hate the
smell of a rotten egg.'

'Let us try to understand things,' said the General. 'Mr. James has
brought his tidings in such a manner that they are evidently very
serious to his mind. Had he brought them coolly I should have smiled at
them. As it is, I think we must come to an explanation.'

'Certainly, General,' Jervase answered. 'Let us come to an explanation.
Get on, James. Who's this suborned rascal you have been telling us
about?'

James began to pull off his dripping overcoat, which by this time had
left a little pond of water on the carpet round about him, and to
fumble in the inner breast pocket of it. 'There are three of them,' he
answered, and for a while he said no more. The General looked from him
to John Jervase, and back again, and if his face were at all an index
to his mind, he saw something which did not please him. His stooping
shoulders straightened, and one hand went up to stroke the grey
moustache. His brows straightened, his mild grey-blue eye grew stern,
and his mouth was ruled into a straight line. The fact was that the
General had had an almost lifelong experience in the great art of
reading men, and though he had preserved a child-like simplicity in his
dealings with the world, the fact was due a thousand times more to the
charity of his heart than to any want of penetration. He was one of
those who suspect nothing until suspicion is actually shaken awake, and
who t