Of course," said Wynd, jumping up, a child under each arm. "Mr.
Vavasour! we shall be most happy to have your company,--for a week if
you will!"

"Ten minutes' solitude is all I ask, sir, if I am not intruding too
far."

"Two hours, if you like. We'll stay here. Mrs. Owen,--the thicker the
merrier." But Elsley had vanished into a chamber bestrewn with plaids,
pipes, hob-nail boots, fishing-tackle, mathematical books, scraps of
ore, and the wild confusion of a gownsman's den.

"The party is taken ill with a poem," said Wynd.

Naylor stuck out his heavy under-lip and glanced sidelong at his friend.

"With something worse, Ned. That man's eye and voice had something
uncanny in them. Mellot said he would go crazed some day; and be hanged
if I don't think he is so now."

Another five minutes, and Elsley rang the bell violently for hot
brandy-and-water.

Mrs. Owen came back looking a little startled, a letter in her hand.

"The gentleman had drunk the liquor off at one draught, and ran out of
the house like a wild man. Harry Owen must go down to Beddgelert
instantly with the letter; and there was five shillings to pay for all."

Harry Owen rises, like a strong and patient beast of burden, ready for
any amount of walking, at any hour in the twenty-four. He has been up
Snowdon once to-day already. He is going up again at twelve to-night,
with a German who wants to see the sun rise; he deputes that office to
John Roberts and strides out.

"Which way did the gentleman go, Mrs. Owen?" asks Naylor.

"Capel Curig road."

Naylor whispers to Wynd, who sets the two little girls on the table, and
hurries out with him. They look up the road, and see no one; run a
couple of hundred yards, where they catch a sight of the next turn,
clear in the moonlight. There is no one on the road.

"Run to the bridge, Wynd," whispers Naylor. "He may have thrown himself
over."

"Tally ho!" whispers Wynd in return, laying his hand on Naylor's arm,
and pointing to the left of the road.

A hundred yards from them, over the boggy upland, among scattered
boulders, a dark figure is moving. Now he stops short, gesticulating;
turns right and left irresolutely. At last he hurries on and upward; he
is running, springing from stone to stone.

"There is but one thing, Wynd. After him, or he'll drown himself in Llyn
Cwn Fynnon."

"No, he's striking to the right. Can he be going up the Glyder?"

"We'll see that in five minutes. All in the day's