When a few days had passed, it was Lord Arleigh who felt unwilling to leave his companion.  He had never felt more at home than he did with Lord Mountdean.  He had met no one so simple, so manly, so intelligent, and at the same time such a good fellow.  There were little peculiarities in the earl, too, that struck him very forcibly; they seemed to recall some faint, vague memory, a something that he could never grasp, that was always eluding him, yet that was perfectly clear; and he was completely puzzled.

“Have I ever met you before?” he asked the earl one day.

“I do not think so.  I have no remembrance of ever having sees you.”

“Your voice and face are familiar to me,” the younger man continued.  “One or two of your gestures are as well known to me as though I had lived with you for years.”

“Remembrances of that kind sometimes strike me,” said the earl—­“a mannerism, a something that one cannot explain.  I should say that you have seen some one like me, perhaps.”

It was probable enough, but Lord Arleigh was not quite satisfied.  The earl and his guest parted in the most friendly manner.

“I shall never be quite so much in love with solitude again,” said Lord Arleigh, as they were parting; “you have taught me that there is something better.”

“I have learned the same lesson from you,” responded the earl, with a sigh.  “You talk about solitude.  I had not been at Rosorton ten days before a party of four, all friends of mine, proposed to visit me.  I could not refuse.  They left the day after you came.”

“I did not see them,” said Lord Arleigh.

“No, I did not ask them to prolong their stay, fearing that after all those hours on the moors, you might have a serious illness; but now, Lord Arleigh, you will promise me that we shall be friends.”

“Yes,” he replied, “we will be friends.”

So it was agreed that they should be strangers no longer—­that they should visit and exchange neighborly courtesies and civilities.

Chapter XXXIII.

The Earl of Mountdean and Lord Arleigh were walking up a steep hill one day together, when the former feeling tired, they both sat down among the heather to rest.  There was a warm sun shining, a pleasant wind blowing, and the purple heather seemed literally to dance around them.  They remained for some time in silence; it was the earl who broke it by saying: 

“How beautiful the heather is!  And here indeed on this hill-top is solitude!  We might fancy ourselves quite alone in the world.  By the way, you have never told me, Arleigh, what it is that makes you so fond of solitude.”

“I have had a great trouble,” he replied, briefly.

“A trouble!  But one suffers a great deal before losing all interest in life.  You are so young, you cannot have suffered much.”

“I know no other life so utterly helpless as my own.”