“Who’s there?” cried the captain, raising the light above his head.
The man came forward slowly until he stood within a yard of the light and raised his head. The captain staggered back a step into the room.
“Forgive me,” said the man huskily. “I have wandered outside this old place for an hour, fearing to come in, but now——I suppose you don’t care to—to take my hand?”
The captain had put down the candle hurriedly, and had the man by both hands and was dragging him in a feeble, excited fashion into the room. “Comethup—my boy—my boy!” he said, over and over again.
He got his visitor into a chair near the fire and began to chafe his half-frozen fingers and to put back the long hair from his face as though he had been tending a child. And while he did so Comethup looked steadily and smilingly at him, and the little captain smiled back at Comethup.
“This is very good of you, sir,” said Comethup at last, in something of the old boyish voice. “I might have known you wouldn’t turn from me, however bad you might think I had been. And isn’t it good just to get back to the old room again? I’ve been so happy in this old room! What a little chap I was when I first came to you! Do you remember? And what a lot has happened since then—what a lot has happened!”
“Where have you been all this time, boy?” asked the captain, still chafing the other’s fingers. “Why have you never been near me?”
Comethup shook his head and smiled drearily. “No, I couldn’t do that,” he said. “I’ve had something of a fight for it, you know, with no weapons to fight with. Look at me”—he indicated his shabby, travel-stained dress by a gesture—“look at me; I’m little better than a tramp, you know. Why—God bless your simple heart, sir—I’m even in hiding.”
“In hiding?” echoed the captain.
“Yes. You know I borrowed a lot of money, and told the people from whom I borrowed it that I was my aunt’s heir. Well, it turned out I wasn’t; they haven’t been able to get their money back, and I haven’t been able to pay the interest. There are writs out against me, I believe, and all sorts of things. Oh, what a muddle it’s been, every bit of it!”