lishman?"

Lawless held out his hand in greeting, yet he was not sorry when the
other replied: "The hand of no man in greeting. Are you alone?"

When he had been told, he turned towards the Fort, and silently they
made their way to it. At the door he turned and said to Lawless, "My
name--to you--is Detmold."

The greeting between Jacques and his sombre host was notable for
its extreme brevity; with Shon McGann for its hesitation--Shon's
impressionable Irish nature was awed by the look of the man, though he
had seen some strange things in the north. Darkness was on them by this
time, and the host lighted bowls of fat with wicks of deer's tendons,
and by the light of these and the fire they ate their supper. Parfaite
beguiled the evening with tales of the north, always interesting to
Lawless; to which Shon added many a shrewd word of humour--for he
had recovered quickly from his first timidity in the presence of the
stranger.

As time went on Jacques saw that their host's eyes were frequently fixed
on Sir Duke in a half-eager, musing way, and he got Shon away to bed and
left the two together.

"You are a singular man. Why do you live here?" said Lawless. Then he
went straight to the heart of the thing. "What trouble have you had, of
what crime are you guilty?"

The man rose to his feet, shaking, and walked to and fro in the room
for a time, more than once trying to speak, but failing. He beckoned
to Lawless, and opened the door. Lawless took his hat and followed him
along the trail they had travelled before supper until they came to the
ridge where they had met. The man faced the north, the moon glistening
coldly on his grey hair. He spoke with incredible weight and slowness:

"I tell you--for you are one who understands men, and you come from
a life that I once knew well. I know of your people. I was of good
family--"

"I know the name," said Sir Duke quietly, at the same time fumbling
in his memory for flying bits of gossip and history which he could not
instantly find.

"There were two brothers of us. I was the younger. A ship was going
to the Arctic Sea." He pointed into the north. "We were both young and
ambitious. He was in the army, I the navy. We went with the expedition.
At first it was all beautiful and grand, and it seemed noble to search
for those others who had gone into that land and never come back. But
our ship got locked in the ice, and then came great trouble. A year went
by and we did not ge