Now the interest which old Mr. Dexter had betrayed while listening to Laura’s story was in reality as nothing compared with that which he felt, and when he reached his home that afternoon he seated himself by the fire and fell into a condition of deep thought.

Mr. Van Kuren who called on him that evening found him in his parlor busy with a number of old letters, papers and photographs which were spread out on the table before him.

“You see,” he said as he rose to greet his guest, “that even here in Paris, with enough to render most men contented, my thoughts go back to my old friends and home in America. I don’t know whether I shall ever return or not; but of late I have been thinking seriously of running over to New York for a week or two to settle a little matter of business that has been worrying me for a short time past.”

Mr. Dexter did not explain that the “short time past” meant only about eight hours nor did he, of course, say what the matter was that troubled him but his guest divined that it might be some 260family affair and asked him if that were not the case.

“Well yes,” rejoined Mr. Dexter, “it is a family matter, and one that I cannot settle very well by mail, though I might write my nephew and ask him to attend to it for me.”

“Your nephew?” exclaimed Mr. Van Kuren, “why I was not aware that you were even on speaking terms with him, and for my part I would not blame you if you never have anything more to say to him.”

The older man looked up at his visitor, and said very gently and with the same pleasant smile that always came into his face when he spoke to either Harry or Laura, “My dear Horace, when you reach my age you will be anxious to settle up all your earthly quarrels so that when the time comes for you to leave this world you may do so with a feeling that you leave no enemies behind.”

“But do you mean to tell me,” demanded Mr. Van Kuren, “that you have become a friend of that good-for-nothing nephew of yours again? I can’t understand it after the way in which he treated you ten years ago.”

“You must remember, Horace, that Sam is the only blood relation I have left in this world. He came to see me a few months before I left 261America, and I found him so regretful for the past, and so much changed for the better that I have now fully as much confidence in him as I ever had in my own son.”

Mr. Van Kuren shrugged his shoulders, and after a moment’s hesitation, replied, “There’s nothing in the world that would induce me to place any confidence whatever in Sam Dexter, even if he is your only blood relation. It is entirely through him that the misunderstanding occurred which separated us for years, and I have heard of him in New York of late as connected with some very dubious enterprises.”

“But my dear Horace,” continued the old gentleman, “you must not believe everything that you hear. I have no doubt that my nephew’s career has not been altogether what it should have been; but that he is thoroughly contrite now I have no reason to doubt. When he first came to see me I supposed, of course, that he was in want of money again, and was therefore inclined to be a little suspicious, but when he not only assured me, but proved to me, that he had a handsome sum laid by out of his savings for a future day, that he wanted nothing of me, and was only anxious to heal up old breaches while I was still alive, then I was 262forced to admit that he was, indeed, a different man from the one whom I had known formerly.”

“Do you mean to say that he never tried to beg or borrow anything from you, that is to say, since this ............