ignorance was a cause of alarm, of dread.

Caswall resumed his habit of watching the great kite straining at its
cord, varying his vigils in this way by a further examination of the
mysterious treasures of his house, especially Mesmer's chest. He sat
much on the roof of the tower, brooding over his thwarted passion. The
vast extent of his possessions, visible to him at that altitude, might,
one would have thought, have restored some of his complacency. But the
very extent of his ownership, thus perpetually brought before him,
created a fresh sense of grievance. How was it, he thought, that with so
much at command that others wished for, he could not achieve the dearest
wishes of his heart?

In this state of intellectual and moral depravity, he found a solace in
the renewal of his experiments with the mechanical powers of the kite.
For a couple of weeks he did not see Lady Arabella, who was always on the
watch for a chance of meeting him; neither did he see the Watford girls,
who studiously kept out of his way. Adam Salton simply marked time,
keeping ready to deal with anything that might affect his friends. He
called at the farm and heard from Mimi of the last battle of wills, but
it had only one consequence. He got from Ross several more mongooses,
including a second king-cobra-killer, which he generally carried with him
in its box whenever he walked out.

Mr. Caswall's experiments with the kite went on successfully. Each day
he tried the lifting of greater weight, and it seemed almost as if the
machine had a sentience of its own, which was increasing with the
obstacles placed before it. All this time the kite hung in the sky at an
enormous height. The wind was steadily from the north, so the trend of
the kite was to the south. All day long, runners of increasing magnitude
were sent up. These were only of paper or thin cardboard, or leather, or
other flexible materials. The great height at which the kite hung made a
great concave curve in the string, so that as the runners went up they
made a flapping sound. If one laid a finger on the string, the sound
answered to the flapping of the runner in a sort of hollow intermittent
murmur. Edgar Caswall, who was now wholly obsessed by the kite and all
belonging to it, found a distinct resemblance between that intermittent
rumble and the snake-charming music produced by the pigeons flying
through the dry reeds.

One day he made a discovery in Mesmer's chest wh