n has told me
that you are looking ill and jaded. So you are! And the town now is hot
and unhealthy. You must come to Derval Court for a week or so. You can
ride into town every day to see your patients. Don't refuse. Margrave,
who is still with me, sends all kind messages, and bade me say that he
entreats you to come to the house at which he also is a guest!"

I started. What had the Scin-Laeca required of me, and obtained to that
condition my promise? "If you are asked to the house at which I also
am a guest, you will come; you will meet and converse with me as
guest speaks to guest in the house of a host!" Was this one of the
coincidences which my reason was bound to accept as coincidences, and
nothing more? Tut, tut! Was I returning again to my "hallucinations"?
Granting that Faber and common-sense were in the right, what was this
Margrave? A man to whose friendship, acuteness, and energy I was under
the deepest obligations,--to whom I was indebted for active services
that had saved my life from a serious danger, acquitted my honour of a
horrible suspicion. "I thank you," I said to Strahan, "I will come; not,
indeed, for a week, but, at all events, for a day or two."

"That's right; I will call for you in the carriage at six o'clock. You
will have done your day's work by then?"

"Yes; I will so arrange."

On our way to Derval Court that evening, Strahan talked much about
Margrave, of whom, nevertheless, he seemed to be growing weary.

"His high spirits are too much for one," said he; "and then so
restless,--so incapable of sustained quiet conversation. And, clever
though he is, he can't help me in the least about the new house I shall
build. He has no notion of construction. I don't think he could build a
barn."

"I thought you did not like to demolish the old house, and would content
yourself with pulling down the more ancient part of it?"

"True. At first it seemed a pity to destroy so handsome a mansion; but
you see, since poor Sir Philip's manuscript, on which he set such store,
has been too mutilated, I fear, to allow me to effect his wish with
regard to it, I think I ought at least scrupulously to obey his other
whims. And, besides, I don't know, there are odd noises about the old
house. I don't believe in haunted houses; still there is something
dreary in strange sounds at the dead of night, even if made by rats, or
winds through decaying rafters. You, I remember at college, had a taste
for architectu