Trains do not stop at the little Rookchester station except when the high
and puissant prince the Earl of Embleton or his visitors, or his
ministers, servants, solicitors, and agents of all kinds, are bound for
that haven. When Logan arrived at the station, a bowery, flowery,
amateur-looking depot, like one of the 'model villages' that we sometimes
see off the stage, he was met by the Earl, his son Lord Scremerston, and
Miss Willoughby. Logan's baggage was spirited away by menials, who
doubtless bore it to the house in some ordinary conveyance, and by the
vulgar road. But Lord Embleton explained that as the evening was warm,
and the woodland path by the river was cool, they had walked down to
welcome the coming guest.
The walk was beautiful indeed along the top of the precipitous red
sandstone cliffs, with the deep, dark pools of the Coquet sleeping far
below. Now and then a heron poised, or a rock pigeon flew by, between
the river and the cliff-top. The opposite bank was embowered in deep
green wood, and the place was very refreshing after the torrid bricks and
distressing odours of the July streets of London.
The path was narrow: there was room for only two abreast. Miss
Willoughby and Scremerston led the way, and were soon lost to sight by a
turn in the path. As for Lord Embleton, he certainly seemed to have
drunk of that fountain of youth about which the old French poet Pontus de
Tyard reports to us, and to be going back, not forward, in age. He
looked very neat, slim, and cool, but that could not be the only cause of
the miracle of rejuvenescence. Closely regarding his host in profile,
Logan remarked that he had shaved off his moustache and the little,
obsolete, iron-grey chin-tuft which, in moments of perplexity, he had
been wont to twiddle. Its loss was certainly a very great improvement to
the clean-cut features of this patrician.
'We are a very small party,' said Lord Embleton, 'only the Prince, my
daughter, Father Riccoboni, Miss Willoughby, my sister, Scremerston, and
you and I. Miss Willoughby came last week. In the mornings she and I
are busy with the manuscripts. We have found most interesting things.
When their plot failed, your ancestor and mine prepared a ship to start
for the Western seas and attack the treasure-ships of Spain. But peace
broke out, and they never achieved that adventure. Miss Willoughby is a
cousin well worth discovering, so intelligent, and so wonderfully
attractive.'
'So Scremerston seems to think,' was Logan's idea, for the further he and
the Earl advanced, the less, if possible, they saw of the pair in front
of them; indeed, neither was visible again till the party met before
dinner.
However, Logan only said that he had a great esteem for Miss Willoughby's
courage and industry through the trying years of poverty since she left
St. Ursula's.
'The Prince we have not seen very much of,' said the Earl, 'as is
natural; for you will be glad to know that everything seems most happily
arranged, except so far as the religious difficulty goes. As for Father
Riccoboni, he is a quiet intelligent man, who passes most of his time in
the library, but makes himself very agreeable at meals. And now here we
are arrived.'
They had reached the south side of the house--an eighteenth-century
building in the red sandstone of the district, giving on a grassy
terrace. There the host's maiden sister, Lady Mary Guevara, was seated
by a tea-table, surrounded by dogs--two collies and an Aberdeenshire
terrier. Beside her were Father Riccoboni, with a newspaper in his hand,
Lady Alice, with whom Logan had already some acquaintance, and the Prince
of Scalastro. Logan was presented, and took quiet notes of the assembly,
while the usual chatter about the weather and his journey got itself
transacted, and the view of the valley of the Coquet had justice done to
its charms.
Lady Mary was very like a feminine edition of the Earl, refined, shy, and
with silvery hair. Lady Alice was a pretty, quiet type of the English
girl who is not up to date, with a particularly happy and winning
expression. The Prince was of a Teutonic fairness; for the Royal caste,
whatever the nationality, is to a great extent made in Germany, and
retains the physical characteristics of that ancient forest people whom
the Roman historian (never having met them) so lovingly idealised. The
Prince was tall, well-proportioned, and looked 'every inch a soldier.'
There were a great many inches.
As for Father Riccoboni, the learned have remarked that there are two
chief clerical types: the dark, ascetic type, to be found equally among
Unitarians, Baptists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Catholics, and the
burly, well-fed, genial type, which 'cometh eating and drinking.' The
Father was of this second kind; a lusty man--not that you could call him
a sensual-looking man, still less was he a noisy humourist; but he had a
considerable jowl, a strong jaw, a wide, firm mouth, and large teeth,
very white and square. Logan thought that he, too, had the makings of a
soldier, and also felt almost certain that he had seen him before. But
where?--for Logan's acquaintance with the clergy, especially the foreign
clergy, was not extensive. The Father spoke English very well, with a
slight German accent and a little hoarseness; his voice, too, did not
sound unfamiliar to Logan. But he delved in his subconscious memory in
vain; there was the Father, a man with whom he certainly had some
associations, yet he could not place the man.
A bell jangled somewhere without as they took tea and tattled; and,
looking towards the place whence the sound came, Logan saw a little group
of Italian musicians walking down the avenue which led through the park
to the east side of the house and the main entrance. They entered, with
many obeisances, through the old gate of floreated wrought iron, and
stopping there, about forty yards away, they piped, while a girl, in the
usual _contadina_ dress, clashed her cymbals and danced not ungracefully.
The Father, who either did not like music or did not like it of that
sort, sighed, rose from his seat, and went into the house by an open
French window. The Prince also rose, but he went forward to the group of
Italians, and spoke to them for a few minutes. If he did not like that
sort of music, he took the more excellent way, for the action of his
elbow indicated a movement of his hand towards his waistcoat-pocket. He
returned to the party on the terrace, and the itinerant artists, after
more obeisances, walked slowly back by the way they had come.
'They are Genoese,' said the Prince, 'tramping north to Scotland for the
holiday season.'
'They will meet strong competition from the pipers,' said Logan, while
the Earl rose, and walked rapidly after the musicians.
'I do not like the pipes myself,' Logan went on, 'but when I hear them in
a London street my heart does warm to the skirl and the shabby tartans.'
'I feel with you,' said the Prince, 'when I see the smiling faces of
these poor sons of the South among--well, your English faces are not
usually joyous--if one may venture to be critical.'
He looked up, and, his eyes meeting those of Lady Alice, he had occasion
to learn that every rule has its exceptions. The young people rose and
wandered off on the lawn, while the Earl came back and said that he had
invited the foreigners to refresh themselves.
'I saw Father Riccoboni in the hall, and asked him to speak to them a
little in their own lingo,' he added, 'though he does not appear to be
partial to the music of his native land.'
'He seems to be of the Romansch districts,' Logan said; 'his accent is
almost German.'
'I daresay he will make himself understood,' said the Earl. 'Do you
understand this house, Mr. Logan? It looks very modern, does it not?'
'Early Georgian, surely?' said Logan.
'The shell, at least on this side, is early Georgian--I rather regret it;
but the interior, northward, except for the rooms in front here, is of
the good old times. We have secret stairs--not that there is any secret
about them--and odd cubicles, in the old Border keep, which was re-faced
about 1750; and we have a priest's hole or two, in which Father Riccoboni
might have been safe, but would have been very uncomfortable, three
hundred years ago. I can show you the places to-morrow; indeed, we have
very little in the way of amusement to offer you. Do you fish?'
'I always take a trout rod about with me, in case of the best,' said
Logan, 'but this is "soolky July," you know, and the trout usually seem
sound asleep.'
'Their habits are dissipated here,' said Lord Embleton. 'They begin to
feed about ten o'clock at night. Did you ever try night fishing with the
bustard?'
'The bustard?' asked Logan.
'It is a big fluffy fly, like a draggled mayfly, fished wet, in the dark.
I used to be fond of it, but age,' sighed the Earl, 'and fear of
rheumatism have separated the bustard and me.'
'I should like to try it very much,' said Logan. 'I often fished Tweed
and Whitadder, at night, when I was a boy, but we used a small dark fly.'
'You must be very careful if you fish at night here,' said Lady Mary. 'It
is so dark in the valley under the woods, and the Coquet is so dangerous.
The flat sandstone ledges are like the floor of a room, and then a step
may land you in water ten feet deep, flowing in a narrow channel. I am
always anxious when anyone fishes here at night. You can swim?'
Logan confessed that he was not destitute of that accomplishment, and
that he liked, of all things, to be by a darkling river, where you came
across the night side of nature in the way of birds, beasts, and fishes.
'Mr. Logan can take very good care of himself, I am sure,' said Lord
Embleton, 'and Fenwick knows every inch of the water, and will go with
him. Fenwick is the water-keeper, Mr. Logan, and represents man in the
fishing and shooting stage. His one thought is the destruction of animal
life. He is a very happy man.'
'I never knew but one keeper who was not,' said Logan. 'That was in
Galloway. He hated shooting, he hated fishing. My impression is that he
was what we call a "Stickit Minister."'
'Nothing of that about Fenwick,' said the Earl. 'I daresay you would
like to see your room?'
Thither Logan was conducted, through a hall hung with pikes, and guns,
and bows, and clubs from the South Seas, and Zulu shields and assegais,
while a few empty figures in tilting armour, lance in hand, stood on
pedestals. Thence up a broad staircase, along a little gallery, up a few
steps of an old 'turnpike' staircase, Logan reached his room, which
looked down through the trees of the cliff to the Coquet.
Dinner passed in the silver light of the long northern day, that threw
strange blue reflections, softer than sapphire, on the ancient plate--the
ambassadorial plate of a Jacobean ancestor.
'It should all have gone to the melting-pot for King Charles's service,'
said the Earl, with a sigh, 'but my ancestor of that day stood for the
Parliament.'
Logan's position at dinner was better for observation than for
entertainment. He sat on the right hand of Lady Mary, where the Prince
ought to have been seated, but Lady Alice sat on her father's left, and
next her, of course, the Prince. 'Love rules the camp, the court, the
grove,' and Love deranged the accustomed order, for the Prince sat
between Lady Alice and Logan. Opposite Logan, and at Lady Mary's left,
was the Jesuit, and next him, Scremerston, beside whom was Miss
Willoughby, on the Earl's right. Inevitably the conversation of the
Prince and Lady Alice was mainly directed to each other--so much so that
Logan did not once perceive the princely eyes attracted to Miss
Willoughby opposite to him, though it was not easy for another to look at
anyone else. Logan, in the pauses of his rather conventional
entertainment by Lady Mary, _did_ look, and he was amazed no less by the
beauty than by the spirits and gaiety of the young lady so recently left
forlorn by the recreant Jephson. This flower of the Record Office and of
the British Museum was obviously not destined to blush unseen any longer.
She manifestly dazzled Scremerston, who seemed to remember Miss Bangs,
her charms, and her dollars no more than Miss Willoughby appeared to
remember the treacherous Don.
Scremerston was very unlike his father: he was a small, rather fair man,
with a slight moustache, a close-clipped beard, and little grey eyes with
pink lids. His health was not good: he had been invalided home from the
Imperial Yeomanry, after a slight wound and a dangerous attack of enteric
fever, and he had secured a pair for the rest of the Session. He was not
very clever, but he certainly laughed sufficiently at what Miss
Willoughby said, who also managed to entertain the Earl with great
dexterity and _aplomb_. Meanwhile Logan and the Jesuit amused the
excellent Lady Mary as best they might, which was not saying much. Lady
Mary, though extremely amiable, was far from brilliant, and never having
met a Jesuit before, she regarded Father Riccoboni with a certain
hereditary horror, as an animal of a rare species, and, of habits perhaps
startling and certainly perfidious. However, the lady was philanthropic
in a rural way, and Father Riccoboni enlightened her as to the reasons
why his enterprising countrymen leave their smiling land, and open small
ice-shops in little English towns, or, less ambitious, invest their
slender capital in a monkey and a barrel-organ.
'I don't so very much mind barrel-organs myself,' said Logan; 'I don't
know anything prettier than to see the little girls dancing to the music
in a London side street.'
'But do not the musicians all belong to that dreadful Camorra?' asked the
lady.
'Not if they come from the North, madam,' said the Jesuit. 'And do not
all your Irish reapers belong to that dreadful Land League, or whatever
it is called?'
'They are all Pap---' said Lady Mary, who then stopped, blushed, and
said, with some presence of mind, 'paupers, I fear, but they are quite
safe and well-behaved on this side of the Irish Channel.'
'And so are our poor people,' said the Jesuit. 'If they occasionally use
the knife a little--_naturam expellas furca_, Mr. Logan, but the knife is
a different thing--it is only in a homely war among themselves that they
handle it in the East-end of London.'
'_Coelum non animum_,' said Logan, determined not to be outdone in
classical felicities; and, indeed, he thought his own quotation the more
appropriate.
At this moment a great silvery-grey Persian cat, which had sat hitherto
in a stereotyped Egyptian attitude on the arm of the Earl's chair, leaped
down and sprang affectionately on the shoulder of the Jesuit. He
shuddered strongly and obviously repressed an exclamation with
difficulty, as he gently removed the cat.
'Fie, Meriamoun!' said the Earl, as the puss resumed her Egyptian pose
beside him. 'Shall I send the animal out of the room? I know some
people cannot endure a cat,' and he mentioned the gallant Field Marshal
who is commonly supposed to share this infirmity.
'By no means, my lord,' said the Jesuit, who looked strangely pale. 'Cats
have an extraordinary instinct for caressing people who happen to be born
with exactly the opposite instinct. I am like the man in Aristotle who
was afraid of the cat.'
'I wish we knew more about that man,' said Miss Willoughby, who was
stroking Meriamoun. 'Are _you_ afraid of cats, Lord Scremerston?--but
you, I suppose, are afraid of nothing.'
'I am terribly afraid of all manner of flying things that buzz and bite,'
said Scremerston.
'Except bullets,' said Miss Willoughby--Beauty rewarding Valour with a
smile and a glance so dazzling that the good little Yeoman blushed with
pleasure.
'It is a shame!' thought Logan. 'I don't like it now I see it.'
'As to horror of cats,' said the Earl, 'I suppose evolution can explain
it. I wonder how they would work it out in _Science Jottings_. There is
a great deal of electricity in a cat.'
'Evolution can explain everything,' said the Jesuit demurely, 'but who
can explain evolution?'
'As to electricity in the cat,' said Logan, 'I daresay there is as much
in the dog, only everybody has tried stroking a cat in the dark to see
the sparks fly, and who ever tried stroking a dog in the dark, for
experimental purposes?--did you, Lady Mary?'
Lady Mary never had tried, but the idea was new to her, and she would
make the experiment in winter.
'Deer skins, stroked, do sparkle,' said Logan, 'I read that in a book. I
daresay horses do, only nobody tries. I don't think electricity is the
explanation of why some people can't bear cats.'
'Electricity is the modern explanation of everything--love, faith,
everything,' remarked the Jesuit; 'but, as I said, who shall explain
electricity?'
Lady Mary, recognising the orthodoxy of these sentiments, felt more
friendly towards Father Riccoboni. He might be a Jesuit, but he was
_bien pensant_.
'What I am afraid of is not a cat, but a mouse,' said Miss Willoughby,
and the two other ladies admitted that their own terrors were of the same
kind.
'What I am afraid of,' said the Prince, 'is a banging door, by day or
night. I am not, otherwise, of a nervous constitution, but if I hear a
door bang, I _must_ go and hunt for it, and stop the noise, either by
shutting the door, or leaving it wide open. I am a sound sleeper, but,
if a door bangs, it wakens me at once. I try not to notice it. I hope
it will leave off. Then it does leave off--that is the artfulness of
it--and, just as you are falling asleep, _knock_ it goes! A double
knock, sometimes. Then I simply _must_ get up, and hunt for that door,
upstairs or downstairs--'
'Or in my--' interrupted Miss Willoughby, and stopped, thinking better of
it, and not finishing the quotation, which passed unheard.
'That research has taken me into some odd places,' the Prince ended; and
Logan reminded the Society of the Bravest of the Brave. What _he_ was
afraid of was a pair of tight boots.
These innocent conversations ended, and, after dinner, the company walked
about or sat beneath the stars in the fragrant evening air, the Earl
seated by Miss Willoughby, Scremerston smoking with Logan; while the
white dress of Lady Alice flitted ghost-like on the lawn, and the tip of
the Prince's cigar burned red in the neighbourhood. In the drawing-room
Lady Mary was tentatively conversing with the Jesuit, that mild but
probably dangerous animal. She had the curiosity which pious maiden
ladies feel about the member of a community which they only know through
novels. Certainly this Jesuit was very unlike Aramis.
'And who _is_ he like?' Logan happened to be asking Scremerston at that
moment. 'I know the face--I know the voice; hang it!--where have I seen
the man?'
'Now you mention it,' said Scremerston, '_I_ seem to remember him too.
But I can't place him. What do you think of a game of billiards,
father?' he asked, rising and addressing Lord Embleton. 'Rosamond--Miss
Willoughby, I mean--'
'Oh, we are cousins, Lord Embleton says, and you may call me Rosamond. I
have never had any cousins before,' interrupted the young lady.
'Rosamond,' said Scremerston, with a gulp, 'is getting on wonderfully
well for a beginner.'
'Then let us proceed with her education: it is growing chilly, too,' said
the Earl; and they all went to billiards, the Jesuit marking with much
attention and precision. Later he took a cue, and was easily the master
of every man there, though better acquainted, he said, with the foreign
game. The late Pope used to play, he said, nearly as well as Mr. Herbert
Spencer. Even for a beginner, Miss Willoughby was not a brilliant
player; but she did not cut the cloth, and her arms were remarkably
beautiful--an excellent but an extremely rare thing in woman. She was
rewarded, finally, by a choice between bedroom candles lit and offered by
her younger and her elder cousins, and, after a momentary hesitation,
accepted that of the Earl.
'How is this going to end?' thought Logan, when he was alone. 'Miss
Bangs is out of the running, that is certain: millions of dollars cannot
bring her near Miss Willoughby with Scremerston. The old gentleman ought
to like that--it relieves him from the bacon and lard, and the dollars,
and the associations with a Straddle; and then Miss Willoughby's family
is all right, but the girl is reckless. A demon has entered into her:
she used to be so quiet. I'd rather marry Miss Bangs without the
dollars. Then it is all very well for Scremerston to yield to Venus
Verticordia, and transfer his heart to this new enchantress. But, if I
am not mistaken, the Earl himself is much more kind than kin. The heart
has no age, and he is a very well-preserved peer. You might take him for
little more than forty, though he quite looked his years when I saw him
first. Well, _I_ am safe enough, in spite of Merton's warning: this new
Helen has no eyes for me, and the Prince has no eyes for her, I think.
But who is the Jesuit?'
Logan fought with his memory till he fell asleep, but he recovered no
gleam of recollection about the holy man.
It did not seem to Logan, next day, that he was in for a very lively
holiday. His host carried off Miss Willoughby to the muniment-room after
breakfast; that was an advantage he had over Scremerston, who was
decidedly restless and ill at ease. He took Logan to see the keeper, and
they talked about fish and examined local flies, and Logan arranged to go
and try the trout with the bustard some night; and then they pottered
about, and ate cherries in the garden, and finally the Earl found them
half asleep in the smoking-room. He routed the Jesuit out of the
library, where he was absorbed in a folio containing the works of the
sainted Father Parsons, and then the Earl showed Logan and Father
Riccoboni over the house. From a window of the gallery Scremerston could
be descried playing croquet with Miss Willoughby, an apparition radiant
in white.
The house was chiefly remarkable for queer passages, which, beginning
from the roof of the old tower, above the Father's chamber, radiated
about, emerging in unexpected places. The priests' holes had offered to
the persecuted clergy of old times the choice between being grilled erect
behind a chimney, or of lying flat in a chamber about the size of a
coffin near the roof, where the martyr Jesuits lived on suction, like the
snipe, absorbing soup from a long straw passed through a wall into a
neighbouring garret.
'Those were cruel times,' said Father Riccoboni, who presently, at
luncheon, showed that he could thoroughly appreciate the tender mercies
of the present or Christian era. Logan watched him, and once when,
something that interested him being said, the Father swept the table with
his glance without raising his head, a memory for a fraction of a moment
seemed to float towards the surface of Logan's consciousness. Even as
when an angler, having hooked a salmon, a monster of the stream, long the
fish bores down impetuous, seeking the sunken rocks, disdainful of the
steel, and the dark wave conceals him; then anon is beheld a gleam of
silver, and again is lost to view, and the heart of the man rejoices--even
so fugitive a glimpse had Logan of what he sought in the depths of
memory. But it fled, and still he was puzzled.
Logan loafed out after luncheon to a seat on the lawn in the shade of a
tree. They were all to be driven over to an Abbey not very far away,
for, indeed, in July, there is little for a man to do in the country.
Logan sat and mused. Looking up he saw Miss Willoughby approaching,
twirling an open parasol on her shoulder. Her face was radiant; of old
it had often looked as if it might be stormy, as if there were thunder
behind those dark eyebrows. Logan rose, but the lady sat down on the
garden seat, and he followed her example.
'This is better than Bloomsbury, Mr. Logan, and cocoa _pour tout potage_:
singed cocoa usually.'
'The _potage_ here is certainly all that heart can wish,' said Logan.
'The chrysalis,' said Miss Willoughby, 'in its wildest moments never
dreamed of being a butterfly, as the man said in the sermon; and I feel
like a butterfly that remembers being a chrysalis. Look at me now!'
'I could look for ever,' said Logan, 'like the sportsman in Keats's
_Grecian Urn_: "For ever let me look, and thou be fair!"'
'I am so sorry for people in town,' said Miss Willoughby. 'Don't you
wish dear old Milo was here?'
Milo was the affectionate nickname--a tribute to her charms--borne by
Miss Markham at St. Ursula's.
'How can I wish that anyone was here but you?' asked Logan. 'But,
indeed, as to her being here, I should like to know in what capacity she
was a guest.'
The Clytemnestra glance came into Miss Willoughby's grey eyes for a
moment, but she was not to be put out of humour.
'To be here as a kinswoman, and an historian, with a maid--fancy me with
a maid!--and everything handsome about me, is sufficiently excellent for
me, Mr. Logan; and if it were otherwise, do you disapprove of the
proceedings of your own Society? But there is Lord Scremerston calling
to us, and a four-in-hand waiting at the door. And I am to sit on the
box-seat. Oh, this is better than the dingy old Record Office all day.'
With these words Miss Willoughby tripped over the sod as lightly as the
Fairy Queen, and Logan slowly followed. No; he did _not_ approve of the
proceedings of his Society as exemplified by Miss Willoughby, and he was
nearly guilty of falling asleep during the drive to Winderby Abbey.
Scremerston was not much more genial, for his father was driving and
conversing very gaily with his fair kinswoman.
'Talk about a distant cousin!' thought Logan, who in fact felt
ill-treated. However deep in love a man may be, he does not like to see
a fair lady conspicuously much more interested in other members of his
sex than in himself.
The Abbey was a beautiful ruin, and Father Riccoboni did not conceal from
Lady Mary the melancholy emotions with which it inspired him.
'When shall our prayers be heard?' he murmured. 'When shall England
return to her Mother's bosom?'
Lady Mary said nothing, but privately trusted that the winds would
disperse the orisons of which the Father spoke. Perhaps nuns had been
bricked up in these innocent-looking mossy walls, thought Lady Mary,
whose ideas on this matter were derived from a scene in the poem of
_Marmion_. And deep in Lady Mary's heart was a half-formed wish that, if
there was to be any bricking up, Miss Willoughby might be the interesting
victim. Unlike her brother the Earl, she was all for the Bangs alliance.
Scremerston took the reins on the homeward way, the Earl being rather
fatigued; and, after dinner, _two_ white robes flitted ghost-like on the
lawn, and the light which burned red beside one of them was the cigar-tip
of Scremerston. The Earl had fallen asleep in the drawing-room, and
Logan took a lonely stroll, much regretting that he had come to a house
where he felt decidedly 'out of it.' He wandered down to the river, and
stood watching. He was beside the dark-brown water in the latest
twilight, beside a long pool with a boat moored on the near bank. He sat
down in the boat pensively, and then--what was that? It was the sound of
a heavy trout rising. '_Plop_, _plop_!' They were feeding all round
him.
'By Jove! I'll try the bustard to-morrow night, and then I'll go back to
town next day,' thought Logan. 'I am doing no good here, and I don't
like it. I shall tell Merton that I have moral objections to the whole
affair. Miserable, mercenary fraud!' Thus, feeling very moral and
discontented, Logan walked back to the house, carefully avoiding the
ghostly robes that still glimmered on the lawn, and did not re-enter the
house till bedtime.
The following day began as the last had done; Lord Embleton and Miss
Willoughby retiring to the muniment-room, the lovers vanishing among the
walks. Scremerston later took Logan to consult Fenwick, who visibly
brightened at the idea of night-fishing.
'You must take one of those long landing-nets, Logan,' said Scremerston.
'They are about as tall as yourself, and as stout as lance-shafts. They
are for steadying you when you wade, and feeling the depth of the water
in front of you.'
Scremerston seemed very pensive. The day was hot; they wandered to the
smoking-room. Scremerston took up a novel, which he did not read; Logan
began a letter to Merton--a gloomy epistle.
'I say, Logan,' suddenly said Scremerston, 'if your letter is not very
important, I wish you would listen to me for a moment.'