r? They had not been meant
for him. He had read enough of the mawkish lines to be sure of
that. None of the allusions fitted in with the facts of their mutual
intercourse. But they might with those of another man; they might with
the possible acts and affections of Oswald whose temperament was wholly
different from his and who might have loved her, should it ever be
shown that they had met and known each other. And this was not an
impossibility. Oswald had been east, Oswald had even been in the
Berkshires before himself. Oswald--Why it was Oswald who had suggested
that he should go there--go where she still was. Why this second
coincidence, if there were no tie--if the Challoners and Oswald were as
far apart as they seemed and as conventionalities would naturally
place them. Oswald was a sentimentalist, but very reserved about
his sentimentalities. If these suppositions were true, he had had a
sentimentalist's motive for what he did. As Orlando realised this, he
rose from his seat, aghast at the possibilities confronting him from
this line of thought. Should he contemplate them? Risk his reason by
dwelling on a supposition which might have no foundation in fact? No.
His brain was too full--his purposes too important for any unnecessary
strain to be put upon his faculties. No thinking! investigation first.
Mr. Challoner should be able to settle this question. He would see him.
Even at this late hour he ought to be able to find him in one of the
rooms below; and, by the force of an irresistible demand, learn in a
moment whether he had to do with a mere chimera of his own overwrought
fancy, or with a fact which would call into play all the resources of an
hitherto unconquered and undaunted nature.

There was a wood-fire burning in the sitting-room that night, and
around it was grouped a number of men with their papers and pipes. Mr.
Brotherson, entering, naturally looked that way for the man he was in
search of, and was disappointed not to find him there; but on casting
his glances elsewhere, he was relieved to see him standing in one of the
windows overlooking the street. His back was to the room and he seemed
to be lost in a fit of abstraction.

As Orlando crossed to him, he had time to observe how much whiter was
this man's head than in the last interview he had held with him in the
coroner's office in New York. But this evidence of grief in one with
whom he had little, if anything, in common, neither touched his feeli