everard left st. oswyth's by the six o'clock train on saturday morning. four hours later he was in liverpool. taking a cab for himself and his portmanteau, he proceeded direct to the shipping office and there booked a berth on board the arbaces for new york. thence he was driven to the landing-stage, where he found the tender whose duty it was to transfer the passengers and their luggage on board the huge liner anchored out in mid-stream.

on reaching the arbaces lisle at once made his way to the stateroom which had been allotted him. he knew already that he would have to share it with a fellow-passenger, and when, on entering it, he found there a dressing-case and a small portmanteau, a natural curiosity to ascertain the name of the person who, for the next week or more would be his nightly, if not his daily companion, led him to turn up one of the labels and read what was written thereon. rarely, perhaps never, in his life had everard lisle been more amazed than he was when his eyes took in these words: "john alexander, esq. passenger to new york." by one of those singular coincidences, which are far more common than the generality of people imagine them to be, he and the man of whom he was in pursuit, and on whom he had not expected to set eyes till after a journey of close upon four thousand miles, had crossed each other's path at the outset. yet, but for the chance of his having read the address label when he did, they would probably have been shipmates for some time before discovering the relation in which each stood to the other, and, in any case, as the arbaces did not call at queenstown, they would have been compelled in their own despite to make the voyage out and home again.

lisle had not recovered from his astonishment when the cabin door was opened from without and he saw before him a tall, finely-built man of middle age, with high aquiline features, dark, grave, earnest-looking eyes, a somewhat worn and thoughtful-looking face, and a long flowing beard already flecked with white.

"my cabin chum, i presume," said the stranger in a deep mellow voice, and with an exceedingly pleasant smile. "i hope we shall have a good passage, and that at the end of it our companionship will remain a pleasant recollection in connection with it."

everard smiled and bowed. "i have taken the liberty of reading the name on your luggage," he said. "pray excuse the question. i have a special reason for asking it, but are you mr. john alexander of pineapple city in the state of michigan?"

the other lifted his eyebrows in surprise. "that is certainly my address, and therefore i can only assume that i am the person to whom you refer."

"then you must be the person whom i was going all the way to pineapple city in search of i am especially glad that i have met you now and here--for one thing, because my having done so will save me the necessity of a voyage to the states and back. mr. alexander, i am the bearer of a letter addressed to you from sir gilbert clare of withington chase."

for a moment or two it seemed to mr. alexander as if the cabin floor were rising and sinking, as it might have done in a heavy gale. he seated himself on the edge of his berth; his face had faded to an ashen grey.

"a letter from my--from sir gilbert clare for me!" he said, speaking like a man in a dream.

from the case which he carried in his breast pocket, everard extracted sir gilbert's missive and handed it to the other. "i will see you again in the course of a few minutes," he said.

it will be enough to say that neither one nor the other sailed by the arbaces, but caused themselves and their belongings to be transferred back to shore at the last moment.

a few hours later, as they sat together over their coffee and cigars in a private room of the adelphi hotel, liverpool, john alexander clare proceeded to give his companion an outline of his history from the time of the explosion of the lake steamer by which he was supposed to have been killed. of that narrative all that need be given here is such a summary as will enable the reader to follow the sequence of events, the outcome of which was the unpremeditated meeting of himself and lisle on board the arbaces.

as may perhaps be remembered, mr. travis, alec's business partner, could not reasonably have come to any other conclusion than that the latter had lost his life by the explosion of the prairie belle, seeing that week after week passed over without bringing any tidings of him; and, indeed, it was not till nearly three months had gone by that one day a tall, emaciated, almost ghastly figure stalked into the office, and for the moment all but made mr. travis's hair stand on end when, in hollow tones, it said: "well, frank, old fellow, how are you by now?"

it appeared that he had been picked up, clinging to a spar and all but insensible, nearly an hour after the explosion had taken place. his rescuer, a farmer who lived on the margin of the lake, caused alec to be taken to his house, where he was carefully nursed and tended by the farmer's wife and daughter. he had been terribly bruised and half blinded by the explosion, and for several weeks he wandered in his mind and knew neither where he was, nor what had befallen him.

the farmer and his family belonged to the sect known as quietists, and as they read no newspapers and held as little communion with the outside world as possible, it followed that alec's name was omitted from the published list of the survivors of the explosion. small wonder was it that travis almost looked upon his partner as on one come back from the grave.

not till then did alec learn of the inquiries which had been made about him during his absence. that the man who made them had come specially from england, mr. travis did not doubt, but as he had declined to state the nature of his business, there was nothing more to tell. the fact interested alec but faintly, and soon passed out of his thoughts. he was a banished man; his wife had deserted him; his child was dead; and to him, after his accident and the illness which resulted from it, his past life gradually assumed the faded proportions of a dream, and not a real experience of his own.

and so one uneventful year after another dragged out its little span, the partners meanwhile prospering in business, and never being other than the best of friends.

at length, through the death of a relative, mr. travis succeeded to a considerable property and at once made up his mind to return to england. alec, who for some years past had been pining for news from home, and who could not but remember that his father was getting well advanced in years, begged of his friend, on his arrival in the old country, to go to mapleford and make certain inquiries sub rosa, and communicate the result to him. this mr. travis at once proceeded to do, writing alec to the effect that his stepmother and his three half-brothers had all been some years dead, that a tablet to his, alec's memory had been put up in the church where so many of his progenitors were buried, that his son had been adopted by sir gilbert as the latter's heir, and that his wife, under the designation of mrs. alexander clare, was residing at the house known as maylings, within a mile of the chase.

alec was astounded. his child had been a girl, and he had still by him, carefully preserved, his wife's heartless letter and the certificate of the infant's death. the result of mr. travis's letter was that, three weeks later, alec landed at liverpool.

what followed is already known to the reader. alec's reason for not denouncing luigi to sir gilbert at an earlier date was owing to his wife's absence in italy, of which he had learnt through certain inquiries made on his account by martin rigg. before taking any positive steps in the affair he was desirous of obtaining some certain evidence as to how far giovanna was implicated in the fraud, his intention being to seek an interview with her immediately upon her return. rispani's attempt on the strong room had brought matters to a climax a little sooner than he had anticipated.

he had not failed to hear of luigi's departure next day from the chase, but although his mission was accomplished and there no longer existed any reason why he should not return to his far-away home, he stayed on day after day, unable to tear himself from the haunts of his youth and the roof-tree where he had been born. but at length he had made up his mind that the next day should be the final one of his stay, and as the evening shadows closed in he had gone to take his last walk in the grounds and his last look at the old mansion. it was the evening on which sir gilbert, finding himself alone indoors owing to the absence of lady pell and the others on their expedition to dunarvon castle, had gone for a twilight stroll in the shrubbery. from the shelter of a bank of evergreens he had been watched by his son as he passed slowly to and fro on the sward, puffing absently at his cigar and buried deep in thought. hence it had come to pass that alec was within a dozen yards of him when, overcome by a sudden dizziness, he stumbled and sank to the ground. his son's strong arms had lifted him and carried him into the library by way of the french window. then, after depositing him on a couch and pressing a kiss on his forehead, alec had rung the bell and made a hurried exit by the way he had come.

next morning he had decided to delay his departure till he should be able to ascertain whether his father was suffering from any after effects of the attack of the previous evening, but the sudden appearance of sir gilbert as he emerged from the spinney on his way to the tower, to all appearance in his usual health, had at once dissipated his fears on that score. it was through an upper window of the tower that he had seen his father's approach; then had come the latter's unanswered summons at the door, and after that his departure across the park in the direction of the lodge. alec had rightly surmised that it was a wish to question martin rigg that had brought sir gilbert to the tower, but he had of course no knowledge of the motives which had prompted the visit. the same evening, a couple of hours after nightfall, he had emerged from the tower, and after locking the door and depositing the key in a place where rigg on his return would know where to look for it, he had crossed the park, no longer wearing the robe and cowl of the grey monk, but in his ordinary attire, and after walking to westwood station, four miles away, had taken the train for london. after a brief stay in town, where nobody recognised him, and where he made no effort to seek out any of his old-time friends or acquaintances, he had journeyed to liverpool and booked himself as a passenger by the arbaces.

it is not difficult to imagine with what absorbed interest everard lisle listened to the narrative of alec clare. there still remained one point, and others would doubtless crop up later on, as to which his curiosity was unsatisfied. "now that you have told me so much, mr. clare," he said presently, "perhaps you won't mind enlightening me as to the means by which you were enabled to make your way into and out of the chase, as it seemed, whenever you chose to do so, without anyone being a bit the wiser."

alec laughed. "the explanation is a very simple one, or so it will seem when you hear it," he said. "the room which used to be my mother's boudoir, and which has latterly, i believe, been assigned to lady pell, has two windows, both of which were originally of the long, narrow, old-fashioned kind, but one of which, at my mother's desire, was modernised into what is called a french window, so that she might have a means of ready access to the garden--for she was somewhat of an invalid--without having to go round by the corridor and the side door. the other window was left untouched and, to all appearance, was not intended to open in any way. but one day, when a lad of ten, i lighted, quite by accident, on a secret spring which, when pressed in a particular way, caused the window to turn bodily on a swivel. through the aperture thus formed any ordinary sized person could squeeze himself without much difficulty. i kept my discovery to myself, finding it useful on several occasions, when i was a rackety young fellow home for my holidays. to what use i put it of late you will have guessed already."

next morning alec clare set out on his journey back to withington chase. as a rule he was much averse to sunday travelling, but the present occasion was an altogether exceptional one. he already felt like another man. the ban which had been laid on him more than a score years before had at length been taken off. his father had written, "come back to me--i want you." the long breach was about to be healed. all was to be forgiven and forgotten. not as a lonely childless old man would his father henceforth drag out his days. and when he thought of what he himself was going back to, his heart felt full to the point of overflowing with deep thankfulness and that sort of chastened elation which, in the case of those who have seen much tribulation and are imbued with a sense of the unstableness of things mundane, often is all they dare permit themselves to feel.

everard in the course of the previous afternoon had despatched a telegram to sir gilbert, informing him that he had overtaken "mr. alexander" before the latter had sailed, and that he, the aforesaid mr. a., might be looked for at the chase in the course of the afternoon of the morrow.

he further wrote a brief note to the baronet informing him that he was called to london by some special private business, and that he had taken the liberty of claiming a couple of days' release from his duties at the chase.

everard's telegram arrived at the chase while sir gilbert was at dinner. when he had read it he passed it to lady pell, who, as soon as she had taken in the message, gave it back to him with a look that was more expressive than words. then he got up and left the room. he felt that he could not have spoken without breaking down. an hour later her ladyship went in search of him and found him in his study, seated by the fire with the telegram clasped tightly in his fingers. "may i come in?" she asked, standing with the handle of the open door in her hand.

"to be sure, louisa. i am glad you have come. you are the only person who can understand what i feel without my needing to say a word about it. even now i can scarcely believe that in a few short hours i shall see my boy and hold his hand in mine. not till death steps in between us, louisa, shall anything part us again!"

it was lady pell who, next afternoon, met alec at the railway station. sir gilbert would not trust himself to go. he was afraid that his emotion would overpower him, and he was nervously shy of making a scene in public. nor was he at the door to welcome his son when the latter alighted at the chase, but lady pell's instinct told her where to look for him. "come with me," she said to alec, and with that she led the way to the study. on reaching it she opened the door and motioned him to enter. sir gilbert, his tall, gaunt figure drawn to its fullest height, was standing on the hearthrug, supporting himself with one hand on the chimney-piece, his face turned expectantly towards the door. he was trembling in every limb, and as alec went quickly forward he put forth his arms and made a faltering step or two to meet him. "oh, my son--my son!" he cried, his voice breaking into a sob as the last words left his lips.

lady pell gently closed the door and left them together.