kes me
back to the day when Tom married her, the loveliest girl--but I am
forgetting, I am forgetting. You've brought your things?" he asked.
"Hudson, where's Hudson? Ring for Mrs. Weston, that's my housekeeper,
child. She'll look after you. And now you are here, you will stay here
with us for a long time, a very long time. It can't be too long, my
dear. I am a lonely old man, but we'll do our best to make you happy."

"I think," Joan said softly, "that you have done that already! Your
welcome and your kindness, have made me happier than I have been for a
very, very long time."

CHAPTER XI

THE GENERAL CALLS ON HUGH

Hugh Alston lingered in London, why, he would not admit, even to
himself. In reality he had lingered on in the hope of seeing Joan
Meredyth again. How he should see her, where and when, he had not the
faintest idea; but he wanted to see her even more than he wanted to see
Hurst Dormer.

He had thought of going to the city and calling on Mr. Philip Slotman
again. But he had not liked Mr. Slotman.

"If I see her, she will only suggest that I am annoying and insulting
her," Hugh thought. "I suppose I thought that I was doing a very fine
and very clever thing in asking her to be my wife!" His face burned at
the thought. He had meant it well; but, looking back, it struck him that
he had acted like a conceited fool. He had thought to make all right, by
bestowing all his possessions and his person on her, and she had put him
in his place, had declined even without thanks.

"And serve me jolly well right!" Hugh said. "Who?" he added aloud.

"Gentleman, sir--General Bartholomew," said the hotel page.

"And who on earth is he?"

"Short, stout gentleman, sir, white whiskers."

"That's quite satisfactory then; I'll see him," said Hugh.

He found the General in the lounge.

"You're Hugh Alston," said the General. "I'd know you anywhere. You are
your father over again. I hope that you are as good a man."

"I wish I could think so," Hugh said, "but I can't!" He shook hands with
the General. He had a dim recollection of the old fellow, as one of his
father's friends, who in the old days, when he was a child, had come
down to Hurst Dormer; but the recollection was dim.

"How did you find me out here, sir?"

"Ah, ha! That's it--just a piece of luck! The name struck me--Alston--I
thought of George Alston. I said to myself, 'Can this be his boy?' And
you are, eh? George Alston, of Hurst Dormer."