be hard on me," he pleaded. "I will try to think of it as you
do. Make some little concession on your side. I want to see how I get
through the night. We will return to what I said to you on board the
steamboat to-morrow morning. Is it agreed?"

It was agreed, of course. There was a door of communication between our
bedrooms. At his suggestion it was left open. "If I find I can't sleep,"
he explained, "I want to feel assured that you can hear me if I call
to you."

Three times in the night I woke, and, seeing the light burning in his
room, looked in at him. He always carried some of his books with him
when he traveled. On each occasion when I entered the room, he was
reading quietly. "I suppose I forestalled my night's sleep on the
railway," he said. "It doesn't matter; I am content. Something that I
was afraid of has not happened. I am used to wakeful nights. Go back to
bed, and don't be uneasy about me."

The next morning the deferred explanation was put off again.

"Do you mind waiting a little longer?" he asked.

"Not if you particularly wish it."

"Will you do me another favor? You know that I don't like London. The
noise in the streets is distracting. Besides, I may tell you I have a
sort of distrust of noise, since--" He stopped, with an appearance of
confusion.

"Since I found you looking into the engine-room?" I asked.

"Yes. I don't feel inclined to trust the chances of another night in
London. I want to try the effect of perfect quiet. Do you mind going
back with me to Vange? Dull as the place is, you can amuse yourself.
There is good shooting, as you know."

In an hour more we had left London.

VII.

VANGE ABBEY is, I suppose, the most solitary country house in England.
If Romayne wanted quiet, it was exactly the place for him.

On the rising ground of one of the wildest moors in the North Riding of
Yorkshire, the ruins of the old monastery are visible from all points of
the compass. There are traditions of thriving villages clustering about
the Abbey, in the days of the monks, and of hostleries devoted to the
reception of pilgrims from every part of the Christian world. Not a
vestige of these buildings is left. They were deserted by the pious
inhabitants, it is said, at the time when Henry the Eighth suppressed
the monasteries, and gave the Abbey and the broad lands of Vange to his
faithful friend and courtier, Sir Miles Romayne. In the next generation,
the son and heir of Sir Miles built the