f when he is
alone in cutting new walking-sticks for his own use. The mere act of
cutting and lopping at hazard appears to please him. He has filled the
house with walking-sticks of his own making, not one of which he ever
takes up for a second time. When they have been once used his interest
in them is all exhausted, and he thinks of nothing but going on and
making more.

At the old boat-house he joined us again. I will put down the
conversation that ensued when we were all settled in our places exactly
as it passed. It is an important conversation, so far as I am
concerned, for it has seriously disposed me to distrust the influence
which Count Fosco has exercised over my thoughts and feelings, and to
resist it for the future as resolutely as I can.

The boat-house was large enough to hold us all, but Sir Percival
remained outside trimming the last new stick with his pocket-axe. We
three women found plenty of room on the large seat. Laura took her
work, and Madame Fosco began her cigarettes. I, as usual, had nothing
to do. My hands always were, and always will be, as awkward as a
man's. The Count good-humouredly took a stool many sizes too small for
him, and balanced himself on it with his back against the side of the
shed, which creaked and groaned under his weight. He put the
pagoda-cage on his lap, and let out the mice to crawl over him as
usual. They are pretty, innocent-looking little creatures, but the
sight of them creeping about a man's body is for some reason not
pleasant to me. It excites a strange responsive creeping in my own
nerves, and suggests hideous ideas of men dying in prison with the
crawling creatures of the dungeon preying on them undisturbed.

The morning was windy and cloudy, and the rapid alternations of shadow
and sunlight over the waste of the lake made the view look doubly wild,
weird, and gloomy.

"Some people call that picturesque," said Sir Percival, pointing over
the wide prospect with his half-finished walking-stick. "I call it a
blot on a gentleman's property. In my great-grandfather's time the
lake flowed to this place. Look at it now! It is not four feet deep
anywhere, and it is all puddles and pools. I wish I could afford to
drain it, and plant it all over. My bailiff (a superstitious idiot)
says he is quite sure the lake has a curse on it, like the Dead Sea.
What do you think, Fosco? It looks just the place for a murder, doesn't
it?"

"My good Percival," remon