large,
lean hands. The other two remained in the centre of the lawn--Turnbull
in convulsions of laughter, the lunatic in convulsions of disgust.
Almost at the same moment a third figure came stepping swiftly across
the lawn.

The advancing figure walked with a stoop, and yet somehow flung his
forked and narrow beard forward. That carefully cut and pointed yellow
beard was, indeed, the most emphatic thing about him. When he clasped
his hands behind him, under the tails of his coat, he would wag his
beard at a man like a big forefinger. It performed almost all his
gestures; it was more important than the glittering eye-glasses through
which he looked or the beautiful bleating voice in which he spoke. His
face and neck were of a lusty red, but lean and stringy; he always wore
his expensive gold-rim eye-glasses slightly askew upon his aquiline
nose; and he always showed two gleaming foreteeth under his moustache,
in a smile so perpetual as to earn the reputation of a sneer. But for
the crooked glasses his dress was always exquisite; and but for the
smile he was perfectly and perennially depressed.

"Don't you think," said the new-comer, with a sort of supercilious
entreaty, "that we had better all come into breakfast? It is such a
mistake to wait for breakfast. It spoils one's temper so much."

"Quite so," replied Turnbull, seriously.

"There seems almost to have been a little quarrelling here," said the
man with the goatish beard.

"It is rather a long story," said Turnbull, smiling. "Originally, it
might be called a phase in the quarrel between science and religion."

The new-comer started slightly, and Turnbull replied to the question on
his face.

"Oh, yes," he said, "I am science!"

"I congratulate you heartily," answered the other, "I am Doctor Quayle."

Turnbull's eyes did not move, but he realized that the man in the panama
hat had lost all his ease of a landed proprietor and had withdrawn to
a distance of thirty yards, where he stood glaring with all the
contraction of fear and hatred that can stiffen a cat.

* * *

MacIan was sitting somewhat disconsolately on a stump of tree, his large
black head half buried in his large brown hands, when Turnbull strode
up to him chewing a cigarette. He did not look up, but his comrade and
enemy addressed him like one who must free himself of his feelings.

"Well, I hope, at any rate," he said, "that you like your pre