“No, don’t move, Talbot,” rejoined St. George in a calm firm voice wondering at Talbot’s manner.  He had never seen him like this.  All his old-time measured talk and manner were gone; he was like some breathless, hunted man pleading for his life.  “I’m very grateful to you but I shall stay here.  Harry, will you kindly go for Matthew?”

“Stay here!—­for how long?” cried the colonel in astonishment, his glance following Harry as he left the room in obedience to his uncle’s request.

“Well, perhaps for the balance of the winter.”

“In this hole?” His voice had grown stronger.

“Certainly, why not?” replied St. George simply, moving his chair so that his guest might see him the better.  “My servants are taking care of me.  I can pay my way here, and it’s about the only place in which I can pay it, and I want to tell you frankly, Talbot, that I am very happy to be here—­am very glad, really, to get such a place.  No one could be more devoted than my Todd and Jemima—­I shall never forget their kindness.”

“But you’re not a pauper?” cried the colonel in some heat.

“That was what you were once good enough to call me—­the last time we met.  The only change is that then I owed Pawson and that now I owe Todd,” he replied, trying to repress a smile, as if the humor of the situation would overcome him if he was not careful.  “Thank you very much, Talbot—­and I mean every word of it—­but I’ll stay where I am, at least for the present.”

“But the bank is on its legs again,” rebounded the colonel, ignoring all reference to the past, his voice gaining in volume.

“So am I,” laughed St. George, tapping his lean thighs with his transparent fingers—­“on a very shaky pair of legs—­so shaky that I shall have to go to bed again pretty soon.”

“But you’re coming out all right, St. George!” Rutter had squared himself in his chair and was now looking straight at his host.  “Gorsuch has written you half a dozen letters about it and not a word from you in reply.  Now I see why.  But all that will come out in time, I tell you.  You’re not going to stay here for an hour longer.”  His old personality was beginning to assert itself.

“The future doesn’t interest me, Talbot,” smiled St. George in perfect good humor.  “In my experience my future has always been worse than my past.”

“But that is no reason why you shouldn’t go home with me now and let us take care of you,” Rutter cried in a still more positive tone.  “Annie will be delighted.  Stay a month with me—­stay a year.  After what I owe you, St. George, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

“You have already done it, Talbot—­every obligation is wiped out,” rejoined St. George in a satisfied tone.

“How?”

“By coming here and asking Harry’s pardon—­that is more to me than all the things I have ever possessed,” and his voice broke as he thought of the change that had taken place in Harry’s fortunes in the last half hour.