-a good phrase!" said his lordship, with a
sleepy laugh, though his eyes were wide open. His lips did not seem to
care to move, yet he looked pleased. "To tell you the truth," he began
again, "at one period of my history I gave and gave till I was tired of
giving! Ingratitude was the sole return. At one period I had large
possessions--larger than I like to think of now: if I had the tenth
part of what I have given away, I should not be uneasy concerning
Davie."

"There is no fear of Davie, my lord, so long as he is brought up with
the idea that he must work for his bread."

His lordship made no answer, and his look reminded Donal of that he
wore when he came to his chamber. A moment, and he rose and began to
pace the room. An indescribable suggestion of an invisible yet luminous
cloud hovered about his forehead and eyes--which latter, if not fixed
on very vacancy, seemed to have got somewhere near it. At the fourth or
fifth turn he opened the door by which he had entered, continuing a
remark he had begun to Donal--of which, although he heard every word
and seemed on the point of understanding something, he had not caught
the sense when his lordship disappeared, still talking. Donal thought
it therefore his part to follow him, and found himself in his
lordship's bedroom. But out of this his lordship had already gone,
through an opposite door, and Donal still following entered an old
picture-gallery, of which he had heard Davie speak, but which the earl
kept private for his exercise indoors. It was a long, narrow place,
hardly more than a wide corridor, and appeared nowhere to afford
distance enough for seeing a picture. But Donal could ill judge, for
the sole light in the place came from the fires and candles in the
rooms whose doors they had left open behind them, with just a faint
glimmer from the vapour-buried moon, sufficing to show the outline of
window after window, and revealing something of the great length of the
gallery.

By the time Donal overtook the earl, he was some distance down, holding
straight on into the long dusk, and still talking.

"This is my favourite promenade," he said, as if brought to himself by
the sound of Donal's overtaking steps. "After dinner always, Mr. Grant,
wet weather or dry, still or stormy, I walk here. What do I care for
the weather! It will be time when I am old to consult the barometer!"

Donal wondered a little: there seemed no great hardihood in the worst
of weather to g