long before he had become a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, his father had owned one of those villas. Now, therefore, the station-master and the one porter (who slept peacefully through the greater part of the day, since but few trains stopped here) came forward to greet him and to answer his first question as to how his father was.

Nor, happily, were their answers calculated to add anything further to his anxiety, since the station-master had not "heerd" that Mr. Ritherdon was any "wus" than usual, and the porter had "seed" him in his garden yesterday. Only, the latter added gruesomely, "he was that white that he looked like--well, he dursn't say what he looked like."

Mr. Ritherdon kept no vehicle or trap of any sort, and no cab was ever to be seen at this station unless ordered by an intending arrival or departing traveller on the previous day, from the village a mile or so off; wherefore Julian started at once to walk up to the house, bidding the porter follow him with his portmanteau. And since the villa, which stood on the little pine-wooded eminence, was no more than a quarter of a mile away, it was not long ere he was at the garden gate and, a moment later, at the front door. Yet, from the time he had left the precincts of the station and had commenced the ascent of the hill, he had seen the white face of his father at the open window and the white hand frequently waved to him.

"Poor old governor," he thought to himself, "he has been watching for the coming of the train long before it had passed Wimbleton, I'll be sworn."

Then, in another moment, he was with his father and, their greeting over, was observing the look upon his face, which told as plainly as though written words had been stamped upon it of the doom that was about to fall.

"What is it?" he said a little later, almost in an awestruck manner. Awestruck because, when we stand in the presence of those whose sentence we know to be pronounced beyond appeal there falls upon us a solemnity almost as great as that which we experience when we gaze upon the dead. "What is it, father?"

"The heart," Mr. Ritherdon answered. "Valvular disease. Sir Josias Smith says. However, do not let us talk about it. There is so much else to be discussed. Tell me of the cruise in the Squadron, where you went to, what you saw----"

"But--your letter! Your hopes that I should soon be back. You have not forgotten? The--the--something--you have to tell me.

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