The events of the day had left him troubled. Any sermon on the
prodigal always touches men; even if it does not prick their
memories, it can always stir their imaginations. Whenever he heard
one, his mind went back to the years when she who afterwards became
Rowan's mother had cast him off, so settling life for him. For
after that experience he had put away the thought of marriage. "To
be so treated once is enough," he had said sternly and proudly.
True, in after years she had come back to him as far as friendship
could bring her back, since she was then the wife of another; but
every year of knowing her thus had only served to deepen the sense
of his loss. He had long since fallen into the habit of thinking
this over of Sunday evenings before going to bed, and as the end of
life closed in upon him, he dwelt upon it more and more.

These familiar thoughts swarmed back to-night, but with them were
mingled new depressing ones. Nothing now perhaps could have caused
him such distress as the thought that Rowan and Isabel would never
marry. All the love that he had any right to pour into any life,
he had always poured with passionate and useless yearnings into
Rowan's--son, of the only woman he had ever loved--the boy that
should have been his own.

There came an interruption. A light quick step was heard mounting
the stairs. A latch key was impatiently inserted in the hall door.
A bamboo cane was dropped loudly into the holder of the hat-rack; a
soft hat was thrown down carelessly somewhere--it sounded like a
wet mop flung into a corner; and there entered a young man
straight, slender, keen-faced, with red hair, a freckled skin,
large thin red ears, and a strong red mouth. As he stepped forward
into the light, he paused, parting the haircut of his eyes and