Hilary Vane was not a man to discuss his domestic affliction with anybody, so he merely grunted and gazed persistently out of the window, and was not aware of the fact that Victoria made a little face at him as she left the room.  The young are not always impartial judges of the old, and Victoria had never forgiven him for carrying to her father the news of an escapade of hers in Ripton.

As he drove through the silent forest roads on his way homeward that afternoon, the Honourable Hilary revolved the new and intensely disagreeable fact in his mind as to how he should treat a prodigal who had attempted manslaughter and was a fugitive from justice.  In the meantime a tall and spare young man of a red-bronze colour alighted from the five o’clock express at Ripton and grinned delightedly at the gentlemen who made the station their headquarters about train time.  They were privately disappointed that the gray felt hat, although broad-brimmed, was not a sombrero, and the respectable, loose-fitting suit of clothes was not of buckskin with tassels on the trousers; and likewise that he came without the cartridge belt and holster which they had pictured in anticipatory sessions on the baggage-trucks.  There could be no doubt of the warmth of their greeting as they sidled up and seized a hand somewhat larger than theirs, but the welcome had in it an ingredient of awe that puzzled the newcomer, who did not hesitate to inquire:—­“What’s the matter, Ed?  Why so ceremonious, Perley?”

But his eagerness did not permit him to wait for explanations.  Grasping his bag, the only baggage he possessed, he started off at a swinging stride for Hanover Street, pausing only to shake the hands of the few who recognized him, unconscious of the wild-fire at his back.  Hanover Street was empty that drowsy summer afternoon, and he stopped under the well-remembered maples before the house and gazed at it long and tenderly; even at the windows of that room—­open now for the first time in years—­where he had served so many sentences of imprisonment.  Then he went cautiously around by the side and looked in at the kitchen door.  To other eyes than his Euphrasia might not have seemed a safe person to embrace, but in a moment he had her locked in his arms and weeping.  She knew nothing as yet of Mr. Blodgett’s misfortunes, but if Austen Vane had depopulated a county it would have made no difference in her affection.

“My, but you’re a man,” exclaimed Euphrasia, backing away at last and staring at him with the only complete approval she had ever accorded to any human being save one.

“What did you expect, Phrasie?”

“Come, and I’ll show you your room,” she said, in a gutter she could not hide; “it’s got all the same pictures in, your mother’s pictures, and the chair you broke that time when Hilary locked you in.  It’s mended.”

“Hold on, Phrasie,” said Austen, seizing her by the apron-strings, “how about the Judge?” It was by this title he usually designated his father.