He walked over to the portrait on the wall and looked at the wild, mocking boy's face there.

For a moment, as he met its gaze, it seemed to grow older and coarser--the light died out of the eyes, the mouth lost its strength, the lines of shame and vice came out on the brow.

Then the old face looked out again--the face of the lost Roger Ingleton.
"Ratman my brother!" he groaned to himself.
Then of a sudden he seemed to see it all.

It was a fraud, an imposition, an impudent plot to extort money.

But no! As he read the letter again that hope vanished.