have more of the other. I cannot believe you
have spent all your life in mere idleness and pleasure."

"Pleasure!" he cried. "Pleasure! Look at this!" He pulled off his hat,
and I saw that his black hair was all decked and dashed with streaks of
grey. "Do you imagine that this came from pleasure?" he asked, with a
bitter laugh.

"You must have had some great shock," I said, astonished at the sight,
"some terrible illness in your youth. Or perhaps it arises from a more
chronic cause--a constant gnawing anxiety. I have known men as young as
you whose hair was as grey."

"Poor brutes!" he muttered. "I pity them."

"If you can manage to slip down to Branksome at times," I said, "perhaps
you could bring Miss Heatherstone with you. I know that my father and my
sister would be delighted to see her, and a change, if only for an hour
or two, might do her good."

"It would be rather hard for us both to get away together," he answered,
"However, if I see a chance I shall bring her down. It might be
managed some afternoon perhaps, for the old man indulges in a siesta
occasionally."

We had reached the head of the winding lane which branches off from the
high road and leads to the laird's house, so my companion pulled up.

"I must go back," he said abruptly, "or they will miss me. It's very
kind of you, West, to take this interest in us. I am very grateful to
you, and so will Gabriel be when she hears of your kind invitation.
It's a real heaping of coals of fire after that infernal placard of my
father's."

He shook my hand and set off down the road, but he came running after me
presently, calling me to stop.

"I was just thinking," he said, "that you must consider us a great
mystery up there at Cloomber. I dare say you have come to look upon
it as a private lunatic asylum, and I can't blame you. If you are
interested in the matter, I feel it is unfriendly upon my part not to
satisfy your curiosity, but I have promised my father to be silent about
it. And indeed if I were to tell you all that I know you might not
be very much the wiser after all. I would have you understand this,
however--that my father is as sane as you or I, and that he has very
good reasons for living the life which he does. I may add that his wish
to remain secluded does not arise from any unworthy or dishonourable
motives, but merely from the instinct of self-preservation."

"He is in danger, then?" I ejaculated.

"Yes; he is in constant danger."