moved, by the events of the night before, out of the silent reserve in
which he had, for years, enveloped himself, was agitated and nervous.
He was the first to speak.

"Mr. Wilks," he said. "I have to give you my heartfelt thanks, for
having restored my granddaughter to me--the more so as I know, from
what she has said, how great a sacrifice you must be making. John has
been telling me of his conversation with you, and you have learned,
from him, that I was not so wholly heartless and unnatural a father as
you must have thought me; deeply as I blame myself, and shall always
blame myself, in the matter."

"Yes," the sergeant said. "I have learned that I have misread you. Had
it not been so, I should have brought the child to you long ago--should
never have taken her away, indeed. Perhaps we have both misjudged each
other."

"I fear that we have," the squire said, remembering the letters he
wrote to his son, in his anger, denouncing the sergeant in violent
language.

"It does not matter, now," the sergeant went on quietly; "but, as I do
not wish Aggie ever to come to think ill of me, in the future, it is
better to set it right.

"When I left the army, I had saved enough money to furnish a house, and
I took one at Southampton, and set up taking lodgers there. I had my
pension, and lived well until my wife died--a year before your son came
down, from London, with another gentleman, and took my rooms. My
daughter was seventeen when her mother died, and she took to managing