’I’ll bet that’s Mr. Arthur.  How grand he is! looks just like a pirate in that cloak and hat,’ was Harold’s mental comment.

Before he had time for further thought, Frank Tracy came from the room and hurried down the stairs to rejoin his guests.

Five minutes later and the door at the end of the long hall which communicated with the back staircase and the rear of the house, opened, and a man whom Harold recognized as the expressman from the station appeared with a huge trunk on his shoulder and a large valise in his hand.  These he deposited in the stranger’s room and then went back for more, until four had been carried in.  But when he came with the fifth and largest of all, a hand, white and delicate as a woman’s, was thrust from the door-way with an imperative gesture, and a voice with a decided foreign accent exclaimed: 

’For heaven’s sake, don’t bring any more boxes in here.  Why, I am positively stumbling over them now.  Surely there must be some place in the house for my luggage besides my private apartment.’

Then the door was shut with a bang, and Harold heard the sliding of the bolt as Arthur Tracy fastened himself in his room.

CHAPTER VIII.

ARTHUR.

All the time that Frank Tracy had been receiving his guests and trying to seem happy and at his ease, his thoughts had been dwelling upon his brother’s telegram and the ominous words, ‘Send some one to meet us.’  How slowly the minutes dragged until it was ten o’clock, and he knew that John had started for the station to meet the dreaded ‘us.’  He had told everybody that he was expecting his long-absent brother, and had tried to seem glad on account of it.

‘You and he were great friends, I believe,’ he said to Squire Harrington.

‘Yes, we were friends,’ the latter replied; ’but when he lived here my health was such that I did not mingle much in society.  I met him, however, in Paris four years ago, and found him very companionable and quite Europeanized in his manner and tastes.  He spoke French or German altogether, and might easily have passed for a foreigner.  I shall be glad to see him.’

‘And so shall I,’ chimed in Peterkin, whose voice was like a trumpet and could be heard everywhere.  ’A first-rate chap, though we didn’t use to hitch very well together.  He was all-fired big feelin’, and them days Peterkin was nowhere; but circumstances alter cases.  He’ll be glad to see me now, no doubt;’ and with the most satisfied air the half millionaire put his hand as if by accident to his immense diamond pin, and pulling down his swallow-tail, walked away.

Frank saw the faint smile of contempt which showed itself in Squire Harrington’s face, and his own grew red with shame, but paled almost instantly as the outer door was opened by some one who did not seem to think it necessary to ring; and a stranger, in Spanish cloak and broad-brimmed hat, stepped into the hall.