CHAPTER XI.
A Day of Surprises.
"Are you better, now?" said the stranger, laying his hand on Harold's shoulder.
"Yes, thank you," replied Harold, jerking himself away, while Rupert gave expression to what we all felt and thought.
"I wish you'd go about like other people, instead of sneaking up the sides of walls." As he spoke he went to the window. "Uncle George!" he shouted at the top of his voice. An answer came from a distance. "Make haste up here, there's a man who wants to see you."
"I pity him if he is in your den," father called out merrily, after about two minutes during which time we had all been perfectly silent, Kathleen and Harold keeping a strict guard over the chest by sitting on it.
It seemed to me a fearful time before father's footstep sounded on the stairs. I almost expected to see the stranger bolt out of the window, but he did not. He stood as still as if he had been cut in marble, until the door opened, and father entered with some joke on his lips which was never uttered.
The mysterious stranger took his hat from his head, and father gazed at him for one brief second, then held out both his hands.
"FATHER GAZED AT HIM FOR ONE SECOND, THEN HELD OUT
BOTH HIS HANDS."