hat."

"And such a man!" cried Uvo. "It's not the talk so much as the talker
that surprises me; and by the way, how well he talked, for him! He was
less of a bore than I've ever known him; there was passion in the
fellow, confound him! Red blood in that lump of road metal! He's not
only sorry for himself. He's simply heartbroken about the girl. But
this maggot of morbid introspection has got into his brain and----how
did it get there, Gilly? It's no place for the little brute. What brain
is there to feed it? What has he ever done, in all his dull days, to
make that harmless mind a breeding-ground for every sort of degenerate
idea? In mine they'd grow like mustard and cress. I'd feel just like
that if I were engaged to the very nicest girl; the nicer she was, the
worse I'd get; but then I'm a degenerate dog in any case. Oh, yes, I am,
Gilly. But here's as faithful a hound as ever licked his lady's hand.
Where's he got it from? Who's the poisoner?"

"I'm glad you ask," said I. "I was afraid you'd say you knew."

"Meaning my old man of the soil?"

"I made sure you'd put it on him."

Uvo laughed heartily.

"You don't know as much about him as I do, Gilly! He was the last old
scoundrel to worry because he didn't love a woman as much as she
deserved. It was quite the other way about, I can assure you."

"Yes; but what about those almost murderous inclinations?"

"I thought of them. But they only came on after our good friend had
shaken this demoralising dust off his feet. As long as he stuck to
Witching Hill he was as sound as a marriage bell! It's dead against my
doctrine, Gillon, but I'm delighted to find that you share my
disappointment."

"And I to hear you own it is one, Uvo!"

"There's another thing, now we're on the subject," he continued, for we
had not been on it for weeks and months. "It seems that over at Hampton
Court there's a portrait of my ignoble kinsman, by one Kneller. I only
heard of it the other day, and I was rather wondering if you could get
away to spin over with me and look him up. It needn't necessarily
involve contentious topics, and we might lunch at the Mitre in that
window looking down stream. But it ought to be to-morrow, if you could
manage it, because the galleries don't open on Friday, and on Saturdays
they're always crowded."

I could not manage it very well. I was supposed to spend my day on the
Estate, and, though there was little doing thus early in the year, it
might be the