It was his house and yet not his house. With that mute accusation, Collinwood's twin doors admitted Paul Stoddard as the antique foyer clock chimed one a.m. He removed his silk-banded hat and heavy overcoat and hung both on the rack inside the doorway, taking from the coat's broad pocket a folded newspaper. This he slowly opened, eyeing the headline that marched across the page in four inch letters: MACARTHUR INVADES PHILIPPINES.

Stoddard refolded the paper and dropped it on a small table placed against the foyer wall. The mirror above it reflected back his rumpled white shirt, the flawless wave in his dark brown hair, and his carefully-combed mustache. He smiled at himself, the newspaper's strident messages of conflict forgotten. The war was so far from this place that not even headlines and radio broadcasts could make it of any concern to Paul Stoddard. He'd never regretted his 4-F military classification: given the present state of things, he was downright thankful for it.

"I'd begun to think you weren't going to bother coming home tonight at all." Elizabeth stood between the double doors leading into the drawing room, her floor-length leisure gown clinging fast to an incredibly svelt figure. Not for the last time, Stoddard cursed himself for marrying an heiress. On the day of their union he had ceased to be Paul Stoddard and become instead the husband of Elizabeth Collins.

"I had a great deal of work to look over," he lied, and knew the words were hopelessly transparent.

She did not acknowledge his obvious deceit, but tossed her head of coiffeured raven hair back toward the drawing room. "Father," she said, "would like to have a word with you."

"Father? Oh surely you jest. The great Jamison Collins desires an audience with me?"

The gruff voice of the party in question came from behind Elizabeth. "Your flippancy is neither welcomed nor appreciated." The greying Jamison Collins became an austere figure in the doorway. "Come inside, Stoddard." The phrase was far less a request than a demand, and intimated Elizabeth's dismissal in the bargain. With a vitriolic glance at her husband she swept past them and up the polished staircase, out of sight.

"Well then," Stoddard assumed an air of confidence he didn't feel and moved into the opulent drawing room. "What keeps the great patriarch up until so late an hour?"

Jamison Collins, ignoring the taunt, took care to close the engraved rosewood doors behind them "Sit down," he demanded, and Stoddard, with a shrug, complied.

"You know I don't believe in mincing words," the elder Collins rumbled, "so I'll come straight to the point. Hannah Winters paid me a visit this morning."

Stoddard's face fell. "Hannah came here? But she said nothing to me about--"

"She would not have. That unfortunate task has fallen to me. So has the responsibility of informing you that the lady has departed Collinaport."

"Departed.. What the devil are you talking about? I saw her less than an hour ago. I--"

Jamison scowled. "So you did. And for the last time, I might add."

Anger brought Stoddard halfway to his feet. "Bastard," he breathed. "What have you done?"

"Sit down." The order, delivered like a gunshot, knocked Stoddard back into his chair.

"What have you done?" he repeated. "Even you couldn't offer Hannah enough money to convince her to leave here--to leave me!"

Jamison's mouth curled into a complacent smile. "You're right about that. And I must say I'm glad you're so candid about the whole sordid affair. That's going to make this much easier."

"Old man, if you don't start telling me what the hell this is all about--"

"If you'll shut up long enough, I'll be happy to tell you. Hannah Winters came here this morning to ask for my help. She came at the advice of her mother, with whom it happens I am closely acquainted."

Stoddard scoffed. "Acquainted! You and Lenore Fillmore-Jennings? Good God, a more unlikely match I could never imagine!"

"Then kindly don't try!" Jamison snapped. "There is no match' as you think of it. Merely a friendship perpetuated for reasons entirely my own. The point of this discussion is that Mrs. Jennings and I have taken steps to insure Hannah's safekeeping, and that necessitated her separation from you."

"I should have guessed. It's a family tradition, after all -- protecting the Collins name from scandal at any cost."

"That was less my motivation than you think, but I won't deny it played a part. Particularly in light of the fact that Hannah Winters is with child."

Stoddard's astonished face revealed his previous ignorance of this fact, and Jamison sought to lessen the blow by pouring him a brandy. "So, you didn't know."

The silence gave him an answer.

Jamison handed his son-in-law the glass and poured another for himself. "I'm very much afraid the late Captain Winters was killed several months too early for this child to be his. The only other possibility is, well, rather too obvious."

"Damn you. You had no right to--"

"I had every right. More than you know. The lady will be cared for; you have my assurance of that."

"I don't want your damned assurance! I want to know where you've sent her!"

"That I will not tell you. You'll never see Hannah Winters again; I'll see to that. After the birth she'll be given a new name and a new life, and the child will be provided for through a private trust fund, all of which I have already arranged."

"Why? Why are you doing this?"

"I have my reasons. They are none of your concern."

Stoddard tossed off the brandy and slammed the glass onto the table, pushing to his feet. "I'll find her. Wherever you've sent her--"

"I wouldn't try if I were you. I really wouldn't. I've saved your marriage for you, Stoddard. Take advantage of this opportunity to maintain your rather slippery hold on the Collins family fortune. Don't meddle. If you do, I promise you you'll be reduced again to the penniless beggar you were when Elizabeth found you!"

The threat of financial standing having hit home, Stoddard was quiet for a long moment. Then, guardedly, he asked, "How much of this does Elizabeth know?"

"She knows you've been having an affair; nothing more. To my way of thinking, that is quite enough."

Stoddard fumed. "I won't forget this, old man."

"See that you don't. The next time I have to save your miserable skin I may not be nearly so considerate of its condition."

Brandy still in hand, Jamison Collins leaned on the ornate mantel and watched his son-in-law's furious march to the door. "Leave well enough alone, Stoddard," he called after. "Remember what I've said."

The drawing room doors slammed shut, cutting off his view of Stoddard's back: the sound of the front doors thudding shut came soon after. Jamison studied his untouched brandy for a moment, then, raising it to the ancestral portrait that hung imposingly over the mantel, he toasted the familiar figure in the painting. "That, my dear Uncle Quentin, was for you. Skoal." And downing the brandy, he shattered the glass in the burned-out embers of the fireplace.

*   *   *

Author's note: Someone is bound to notice an apparent discrepancy in the ending of this story: how could Jamison be addressing the portrait of Quentin when we all know it's hidden away somewhere again and sprouting fur at every cycle of the moon? Well, obviously he couldn't. I had in mind the possibility of a second non-enchanted painting, however, (not the cursed one) hanging over the mantel. Not impossible... I just couldn't work an explanation into the story itself without sounding terribly awkward.