iness had this Englishman with Marshall on his deathbed? What
business of a secrecy so close that Marshall's son is barred out by a
locked door?"

He paused and twisted the seal ring on his finger.

"When you and I came to visit the sick man, Gosford was always here, as
though he kept a watch upon us, and when we left, he went always to this
room to write his letters, as he said.

"And more than this, Pendleton; Marshall is hardly in his grave before
Gosford writes me to inquire by what legal process the dead man's papers
may be examined for a will. And it is Gosford who sends a negro riding,
as if the devil were on the crupper, to summon me in the name of the
Commonwealth of Virginia,--to appear and examine into the circumstances
of this burglary.

"I mistrust the man. He used to hang about Marshall in his life, upon
some enterprise of secrecy; and now he takes possession and leadership
in his affairs, and sets the man's son aside. In what right, Pendleton,
does this adventurous Englishman feel himself secure?"

My father did not reply to Lewis's discourse. His comment was in another
quarter.

"Here is young Marshall and Gaeki," he said.

The lawyer rose and came over to the window.

Two persons were advancing from the direction of the stables--a tall,
delicate boy, and a strange old man. The old man walked with a quick,
jerky, stride. It was the old country doctor Gaeki. And, unlike any
other man of his profession, he would work as long and as carefully on
the body of a horse as he would on the body of a man, snapping out his
quaint oaths, and in a stress of effort, as though he struggled with
some invisible creature for its prey. The negroes used to say that the
devil was afraid of Gaeki, and he might have been, if to disable a man
or his horse were the devil's will. But I think, rather, the negroes
imagined the devil to fear what they feared themselves.

"Now, what could bring Gaeki here?" said Lewes.

"It was the horse that Gosford overheated in his race to you," replied
my father. "I saw him stop in the road where the negro boy was leading
the horse about, and then call young Marshall."

"It was no fault of young Marshall, Pendleton," said the lawyer. "But,
also, he is no match for Gosford. He is a dilettante. He paints little
pictures after the fashion he learned in Paris, and he has no force or
vigor in him. His father was a dreamer, a wanderer, one who loved the
world and its frivolities, and the s