e thinks she can be useful to you," I said. "I have known
sisters give up their own happiness on no better grounds."

"Useful?" he sneered. "It's a usefulness a man like me can dispense
with. Do you know what I would like?"

We were standing in one of the tangled pathways, with our faces turned
toward the house. As he spoke, he looked up and made a rude sort of
gesture toward the blank expanse of empty and curtainless windows.

"I would like that great house all to myself, to make into one huge,
bachelor's hall. I should like to feel that I could tramp from one end
of it to the other without awakening an echo I did not choose to hear
there. I should not find it too big. I should not find it too lonesome.
I and my dogs would know how to fill it, wouldn't we, Saracen? Oh, I
forgot, Saracen is locked up."

The way he mumbled the last sentence showed displeasure, but I gave
little heed to that. The gloating way in which he said he and his dogs
would fill it had given me a sort of turn. I began to have more than an
aversion for the man. He inspired me with something like terror.

"Your wishes," said I, with as little expression as possible, "seem to
leave your sisters entirely out of your calculations. How would your
mother regard that if she could see you from the place where she is
gone?"

He turned upon me with a look of anger that made his features positively
ugly.

"What do you mean by speaking to me of my mother? Have I spoken of her
to you? Is there any reason why you should lug my mother into this
conversation? If so, say so, and be----"

He did not swear at me; he did not dare to, but he came precious near to
it, and that was enough to make me recoil.

"She was my friend," said I. "I knew and loved her before you were born.
That was why I spoke of her, and I think it very natural myself."

He seemed to feel ashamed. He grumbled out some sort of apology and
looked about quite helplessly, possibly for the dog he manifestly was in
the habit of seeing forever at his heels. I took advantage of this
momentary abstraction on his part to smooth my own disturbed features.

"She was a beautiful girl," I remarked, on the principle that, the ice
once broken, one should not hesitate about jumping in. "Was your father
equally handsome for a man?"

"My father--yes, let's talk of father. He was a judge of horses, he was.
When he died, there were three mares in the stable not to be beat this
side of Albany, but those d