bed; I little expected to find
you here. I think the Doctor gave very particular directions, and said
that you were to remain perfectly quiet."

"But I know more than the Doctor," replied Feltram, still smiling
unpleasantly.

"I think, sir, you would have been better in your bed," said Sir Bale
loftily.

"Come, come, come, come!" exclaimed Philip Feltram contemptuously.

[Illustration: It was the figure of a slight tall man, with his arm
extended, as if pointing to a remote object.]

"It seems to me," said Sir Bale, a good deal astonished, "you rather
forget yourself."

"Easier to forget oneself, Sir Bale, than to forgive others, at times,"
replied Philip Feltram in his unparalleled mood.

"That's the way fools knock themselves up," continued Sir Bale. "You've
been walking ever so far--away to the Fells of Golden Friars. It was you
whom I saw there. What d----d folly! What brought you there?"

"To observe you," he replied.

"And have you walked the whole way there and back again? How did you get
there?"

"Pooh! how did I come--how did you come--how did the fog come? From the
lake, I suppose. We all come up, and then down." So spoke Philip
Feltram, with serene insolence.

"You are pleased to talk nonsense," said Sir Bale.

"Because I like it--with a _meaning_."

Sir Bale looked at him, not knowing whether to believe his eyes and
ears. He did not know what to make of him.

"I had intended speaking to you in a conciliatory way; you seem to wish
to make that impossible"--Philip Feltram's face wore its repulsive
smile;--"and in fact I don't know what to make of you, unless you are
ill; and ill you well may be. You can't have walked much less than
twelve miles."

"Wonderful effort for me!" said Feltram with the same sneer.

"Rather surprising for a man so nearly drowned," answered Sir Bale
Mardykes.

"A dip: you don't like the lake, sir; but I do. And so it is: as Antaeus
touched the earth, so I the water, and rise refreshed."

"I think you'd better get in and refresh there. I meant to tell you that
all the unpleasantness about that bank-note is over."

"Is it?"

"Yes. It has been recovered by Mr. Creswell, who came here last night.
I've got it, and you're not to blame," said Sir Bale.

"But some one _is_ to blame," observed Mr. Feltram, smiling still.

"Well, _you_ are not, and that ends it," said the Baronet peremptorily.

"Ends it? Really, how good! how very good!"

Sir Bale looked at him