"Confound your stupid trains. I've been traveling for ages. Now, Minot, I'll tell you what carried me off. Yesterday afternoon I got a message from my brother George saying he was on his way here."
"Yes?"
"Seems he's alive and in business in Chicago. The news excited me a bit, old boy. I pictured George rushing in here, and the word spreading that I was not to be the Earl of Raybrook, after all. I'm frightfully fond of Miss Meyrick, and I want that wedding to take place to-morrow. Then, too, there's Jephson. Understand me—Cynthia is not marrying me for my title. I'd stake my life on that. But there's the father and Aunt Mary—and considering the number of times the old gentleman has forbidden the wedding already—"
"You saw it was up to you, for once."
"Exactly. So for my own sake—and Jephson's—I boarded a train for Jacksonville with the idea of meeting George's train there and coming on here with him. I was going to ask George not to make himself known for a couple of days. Then I proposed to tell Cynthia, and Cynthia only, of his existence. If she objected, all very well—but I'm sure she wouldn't. And I'm sure, too, that George would have done what I asked—he always was a bully chap. But—I missed him. These confounded trains—always late. Except when you want them to be. I dare say George is here by this time?"
"He is," Minot replied. "Came a few hours after you left. And by the way, I arranged a meeting for him with Trimmer and his proposition. The proposition fled into the night. It seems he was the son of an old servant of your father's—Jenkins by name."
"Surely! Surely that was Jenkins! I thought I'd seen the chap somewhere—couldn't quite recall— Well, at any rate, he's out of the way. Now the thing to do is to see good old George at once—"
He went to the telephone, and got his brother's room.
"George!" A surprising note of affection crept into his lordship's voice. "George, old boy—this is Allan. I'm waiting for you in my rooms."
"Dear old chap," said his lordship, turning away from the telephone. "Twenty-three years since he has seen one of his own flesh and blood! Twenty-three years of wandering in this God-forsaken country—I beg your pardon, Minot. I wonder what he'll say to me. I wonder what George will say after all those years."