Miriam looked at the card.
"Mr. Maxwell." She did not know the name. She wondered who it could be. Probably some friend of Gerald's.
"Show Mr. Maxwell in, Jane."
A tall man in a frock-coat, with a flower in his button-hole, and the most shiny of silk hats in his hand, stood in the door. She stepped forward to meet him, and recoiled, pale to the lips.
"Jabez!" she gasped. "You here!"
CHAPTER II.
JABEZ REDIVIVUS.
It was Jabez. The prodigal had returned, though by no means in the rags of his Biblical prototype. Rather was he like the rich man in the parable—clothed in purple and fine linen. In modern parlance there was about him the look of a man with a balance at his bank. A vastly different person from the scarecrow who had met Miriam under the wall of Lesser Thorpe church.
"Jabez," she repeated—her voice was hoarse and low—"what are you doing here?"