tated. Then
he picked up his hat and bowed.

"Perhaps," he said, "this may not be the last word!"

XXXI

Jennings stood with a decanter in his hand, looking resentfully at his
master's untasted wine. He shook his head ponderously. Not only was the
wine untouched, but the _Cumberland Times_ lay unopened upon the table.
Grim and severe in his high-backed chair, Stephen Strangewey sat with
his eyes fixed upon the curtained window.

"There's nothing wrong with the wine, I hope, sir?" the man asked. "It's
not corked or anything, sir?"

"Nothing is the matter with it," Stephen answered. "Bring me my pipe."

Jennings shook his head firmly.

"There's no call for you, sir," he declared, "to drop out of your old
habits. You shall have your pipe when you've drunk that glass of port,
and not before. Bless me! There's the paper by your side, all unread,
and full of news, for I've glanced it through myself. Corn was higher
yesterday at Market Ketton, and there's talk of a bad shortage of fodder
in some parts."

Stephen raised his glass to his lips and drained its contents.

"Now bring me my pipe, Jennings," he ordered.

The old man was still disposed to grumble.

"Drinking wine like that as if it were some public-house stuff!" he
muttered, as he crossed the room, toward the sideboard. "It's more a
night, this, to my way of thinking, for drinking a second glass of wine
than for shilly-shallying with the first. There's the wind coming across
Townley Moor and down the Fells strong enough to blow the rocks out of
the ground. It 'minds me of the time Mr. John was out with the
Territorials, and they tried the moor for their big guns."

The rain lashed the window-panes, and the wind whistled past the front
of the house. Stephen sat quite still, as if listening--it may have been
to the storm.

"Well, here's your pipe, sir," Jennings continued, laying it by his
master's side, "and your tobacco and the matches. If you'd smoke less
and drink a glass or two more of the right stuff, it would be more to my
liking."

Stephen filled his pipe with firm fingers. Then he laid it down, unlit,
by his side.

"Bring me back the port, Jennings," he ordered, "and a glass for
yourself."

Jennings obeyed promptly. Stephen filled both glasses, and the two men
looked at each other as they held them out.

"Here's confusion to all women!" Stephen said, as he raised his to his
lips.

"Amen, sir!" Je