"Just a shade. You might have heaps of friends."

"That may be, or may not. It is certain that I have not. Oh, well, this is unprofitable. Take a cigarette from the recluse."

They smoked in silence a minute or two.

"Your uncle?" asked Geoffrey; "he comes to-night, you said."

"Yes; I expect him before dinner. You've never seen him?"

[Pg 9]

[Pg 9]

"Never. What is he like?"

Harry pointed to a picture that hung above the fireplace.

"Like that," he said—"exactly like that."

Geoffrey looked at it a moment, shading his eyes from the lamp.

"Fancy-dress ball, I suppose?" he said.

"No; the costume of the period," said Harry. "It is not my uncle at all, but an ancestor of sorts. The picture is by Holbein, but, oddly enough, it is the very image of Uncle Francis."

"Francis Vail, second baron," spelled out Geoffrey, from the faded lettering on the frame.

"Yes, his name was Francis, too."

"What is that great cup he is holding?" asked the other.

"Ah! I wondered whether you would notice that. I will show it you this evening. At least, I am certain that what I have found is it."

"It looks rather a neat thing," said Geoffrey. "But I can't say as much for the second baron, Harry. He seems to me a wicked old man."

"There is no doubt that he was. Among other charming deeds, he almost certainly killed his own father. He was smothered in debt, came down here to try to get his father to pay up for him, and met with a pretty round refusal, it 

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