“Thank you, Sir Gilbert,” I answered, “but I haven’t started that yet.”

“Well, then, I will,” he laughed, and he picked out a cigar, lighted it, and flinging himself into an easy chair, motioned me to take another exactly opposite to him.  “Now, then, fire away!” he said.  “Nobody’ll interrupt us, and my time’s yours.  You’ve some message for me?”

I took a good look at him before I spoke.  He was a big, fine, handsome man, some five-and-fifty years of age, I should have said, but uncommonly well preserved—­a clean-shaven, powerful-faced man, with quick eyes and a very alert glance; maybe, if there was anything struck me particularly about him, it was the rapidity and watchfulness of his glances, the determination in his square jaw, and the extraordinary strength and whiteness of his teeth.  He was quick at smiling, and quick, too, in the use of his hands, which were always moving as he spoke, as if to emphasize whatever he said.  And he made a very fine and elegant figure as he sat there in his grand evening clothes, and I was puzzled to know which struck me most—­the fact that he was what he was, the seventh baronet and head of an old family, or the familiar, easy, good-natured fashion which he treated me, and talked to me, as if I had been a man of his own rank.

I had determined what to do as I sat waiting him; and now that he had bidden me to speak, I told him the whole story from start to finish, beginning with Gilverthwaite and ending with Crone, and sparing no detail or explanation of my own conduct.  He listened in silence, and with more intentness and watchfulness than I had ever seen a man show in my life, and now and then he nodded and sometimes smiled; and when I had made an end he put a sharp question.

“So—­beyond Crone—­who, I hear, is dead—­you’ve never told a living soul of this?” he asked, eyeing me closely.

“Not one, Sir Gilbert,” I assured him.  “Not even—­”

“Not even—­who?” he inquired quickly.

“Not even my own sweetheart,” I said.  “And it’s the first secret ever I kept from her.”

He smiled at that, and gave me a quick look as if he were trying to get a fuller idea of me.

“Well,” he said, “and you did right.  Not that I should care two pins, Mr. Moneylaws, if you’d told all this out at the inquest.  But suspicion is easily aroused, and it spreads—­aye, like wildfire!  And I’m a stranger, as it were, in this country, so far, and there’s people might think things that I wouldn’t have them think, and—­in short, I’m much obliged to you.  And I’ll tell you frankly, as you’ve been frank with me, how I came to be at those cross-roads at that particular time and on that particular night.  It’s a simple explanation, and could be easily corroborated, if need be.  I suffer from a disturbing form of insomnia—­sleeplessness—­it’s a custom of mine to go long walks late at night.  Since I came here, I’ve been out that way almost every night, as my servants could assure you.