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that she had called him the head of the house, and the idea troubled him. It was a position of importance. It dragged in its train certain responsibilities that he did not at all wish to shoulder, and Carrick Dunmore blundered out: “All that fencin’ around the corral ain’t so strong, and maybe you’d use this to put up a new fence, Elizabeth. I want to do something.”
    â€œOf course, you do. I know that you’ve got a heart of gold, Carrick. But you see that I can’t take it. Oh, if I were desperate, of course, I wouldn’t hesitate an instant. I knew that you’d feel a bit of responsibilityabout us all . . . but that time hasn’t come, Carrick. I still get along very well. Do take your money.”
    He took it, beginning to feel hot and wishing that this farewell ceremony were over. But now she suggested that he might want to see the rest of the house, and he had to consent. She took him up to the very top, where there was a sort of captain’s walk that her father used to walk up and down on and from it overlook the country. She led him through the bedrooms, and named the big, faded, enlarged photographs that hung upon the walls. Carrick Dunmore began to feel that he was walking through a house of death until, in a rear bedroom, she showed him a new photograph of a handsome youngster.
    â€œThat’s poor Rod,” she said. “Such a dear boy, Carrick. But I suppose I’ll never see his face again.”
    â€œAnd why not?”
    â€œAh, well, he’s the kind to take great chances, and perhaps he’s grown callous. Heaven knows what his end will be, but I think it will surely come inside the next six months. And then I’ll. . . .”
    She led the way hastily out of the room, and Carrick Dunmore followed with a gloomy face. And then?— then she would be left utterly alone in the world, with the failing house and the failing farm upon her hands. He sighed, and followed her down the stairs to the first floor, over the hushed carpet of the parlor, with its pattern of roses bright at the edges and fading toward the center, and so to the library, a room of real dignity.
    There, also, were several portraits, and, pointing to a corner, Elizabeth remarked: “That’s said to be a picture of the first Carrick Dunmore.”
    He looked at it in amazement. He had heard so much about this first of his line that now he walked closer to the portrait, curiously. He saw at first only a blur of brown and of black shadows, with the paint peeled off to wood in spots. It had been painted, apparently, in imitation of the effigies that appear of the good knights in parish churches. The mail-shod feet pointed down, with tapering toes, and the long hands were pressed together. A cowl of mail covered the head, but the face itself was quite distinct, and, when he had seen it, Carrick Dunmore suddenly shaded his eyes and stared again. Then he looked wildly around at Elizabeth Furneaux.
    â€œCan you make it out?” she said. “It’s a dim old thing, isn’t it? I don’t suppose it looks a whit like him.”
    â€œGreat guns!” he exclaimed. “Look at it again, and then look at me, will you, Elizabeth?”
    She looked a bit askance at him, and then obediently came nearer. But when she was quite close, she cried out in her turn and caught at his arm.
    â€œCarrick!” she cried. “It’s your face over again!”

S EVEN
    It seemed to Carrick Dunmore like the appearance of a ghost—as though it were not paint but spirit that looked out at him from the old warped wood of the image. For, beyond a doubt, there was his face reproduced. It was not an exact thing. One could not have expected that, but it was very clear that there was a great resemblance. Some of the paint was peeled or crumbled off, the left eye was streaked across by a great crack, and the right cheek was falling to bits, but it was as though he looked at his own