g
in looks, manners and address, who had not one word to say to me about
the Lady Jermyn or my hen-coop. It was unique. Yet such, I suppose,
was my native contrariety, that I felt I could have spoken of the
catastrophe to this very boy with less reluctance than to any other
creature whom I had encountered since my deliverance. He seemed so full
of silent sympathy: his consideration for my feelings was so marked and
yet so unobtrusive. I have called him a boy. I am apt to write as the
old man I have grown, though I do believe I felt older then than now.
In any case my young friend was some years my junior. I afterwards found
out that he was six-and-twenty.

I have also called him handsome. He was the handsomest man that I have
ever met, had the frankest face, the finest eyes, the brightest smile.
Yet his bronzed forehead was low, and his mouth rather impudent and bold
than truly strong. And there was a touch of foppery about him, in the
enormous white tie and the much-cherished whiskers of the fifties, which
was only redeemed by that other touch of devilry that he had shown me
in the corridor. By the rich brown of his complexion, as well as by a
certain sort of swagger in his walk, I should have said that he was a
naval officer ashore, had he not told me who he was of his own accord.

"By the way," he said, "I ought to give you my name. It's Rattray,
of one of the many Kirby Halls in this country. My one's down in
Lancashire."

"I suppose there's no need to tell my name?" said I, less sadly, I
daresay, than I had ever yet alluded to the tragedy which I alone
survived. It was an unnecessary allusion, too, as a reference to the
foregoing conversation will show.

"Well, no!" said he, in his frank fashion; "I can't honestly say there
is."

We took a few puffs, he watching the fire, and I his firelit face.

"It must seem strange to you to be sitting with the only man who lived
to tell the tale!"

The egotism of this speech was not wholly gratuitous. I thought it did
seem strange to him: that a needless constraint was put upon him by
excessive consideration for my feelings. I desired to set him at his
ease as he had set me at mine. On the contrary, he seemed quite startled
by my remark.

"It is strange," he said, with a shudder, followed by the biggest sip
of brandy-and-water he had taken yet. "It must have been
horrible--horrible!" he added to himself, his dark eyes staring into the
fire.

"Ah!" said I, "it was e