When she came blinking out into the lighted dining-room, the men
were upstairs, and Helma, to Anne's astonishment, was showing in
another caller,--and another Charles Rideout, as Anne's puzzled
glance at the card in her hand, assured her. This was a tall young
man, a little dishevelled, in a big storm coat, and with dark rings
about his eyes.

"I beg your pardon, madam," said he, abruptly, "but was my father,
Mr. Charles Rideout, here this afternoon?"

"Why, he's upstairs with my husband now!" Anne said, strangely
disquieted by the young man's manner.

"Thank God!" said the newcomer, briefly. And he wiped his forehead
with his handkerchief, and drew a deep short breath.

"He--I must apologize to you for breaking in upon you this way,"
said young Rideout, "but he came out in the car this afternoon, and
we didn't know where he had gone. He made the chauffeur wait at the
corner at the bottom of the hill, and the fool man waited an hour
before it occurred to him to telephone me at the house. I came at
once."

"He's been here all that time," Anne said. "He's all right. Your
mother and father used to live here, you know, years ago. In this
same house."

"Yes, I know we did. I think I was born here," said Charles Rideout,
Junior. "I had a sort of feeling that he had come here, as soon as