Sir Donald nodded and glanced across at the vacant place on the panelled wall.
"But at last," went on the speaker, "Sir John Leslie entered, with his plaid about his shoulders, as if he had newly returned from a journey. He regarded his soldier son with stony indifference."
"'Well?' he demanded; 'what do you want here?'
"'I have come, sir,' stammered Alan, surprised at this cold welcome. 'I have come—'
"His father bent forward with his hand resting on the table at his side, and almost touching Alan's regimental cap with its bright brass badge.
"'You have come as a spy!' he cried bitterly, following up the accusation with a volley of virulent taunts. 'You ingrate!' he cried; 'you weak-kneed renegade! Where is your patriotism? How dare you come here, wearing the uniform of the hateful foreign usurper whom you serve?'"
"He said that?" questioned Sir Donald agitatedly. "He—my father—said that?"
Colonel Ossington took up the fire-tongs and caught at a fragment of burning wood with which to light his pipe.
"Those were his own words," said he; "and they were not less surprising to me than they were to Alan Leslie. I do not exactly remember what Alan said in retaliation, but he taunted his father with being a Jacobite, and, as he said, 'the follower of an upstart Pretender'; and at these words Sir John drew himself proudly together and stood at his full height, which I am sure must have been a good six feet. 'I will not have His Royal Highness so named in my presence,' he declared with a frown, and pointing to the door in all the dignity of his old age, he added: 'You are no son of mine, and I do not wish ever to see you again.'
"But even as he spoke, the door was opened from
