"Four years ago," he said, between his teeth, "you flung me from your
door like a dog, most noble baronet, and you swore to lodge me in
Chesholm jail if I ever presumed to come back. And I swore to pay you
off if I ever had a chance. To-night the chance has come, thanks to
the girl who jilted me. You're a young man of uncommonly high stomach,
my baronet, proud as the deuce and jealous as the devil. I'll give
your pride and your jealousy a chance to show themselves to-night."

He lifted the massive brass knocker, and brought it down with a clang
that echoed through the house. Then he began whistling again, watching
those lighted, lace-draped windows.

"And to think," he was saying inwardly, "to think of our little Ethel
being mistress here. On my word it's a lift in life for the
soap-boiler's pretty daughter. I wonder what they're all about up
there now, and how Inez takes it. I should think there must have been
the dickens to pay when she heard it first."

The heavy door swung back, and a dignified elderly gentleman, in black
broadcloth and silk stockings, stood gazing at the intruder. The young
man stepped from the outer darkness into the lighted vestibule, and
the elderly gentleman fell back with a cry.

"Master Juan!"

"_Mister_ Juan, Hooper, if you please--_Mister_ Juan. William, my
old cockalorum, my last rose of summer, how goes it?"

He grasped the family butler's hand with a jolly laugh, and gave it a
shake that brought tears of torture to its owner's eyes. In the blaze