“Excuse me,” said Dacres, abruptly.

“Certainly, my dear boy, a thousand times; only I hope you will allow me to remark that your style is altogether a new one, and during the whole course of our acquaintance I do not remember seeing it before.  You have a melodramatic way that is overpowering.  Still I don’t see why you should swear at yourself in a place like Naples, where there are so many other things to swear at.  It’s a waste of human energy, and I don’t understand it.  We usedn’t to indulge in soliloquies in South America, used we?”

[ILLUSTRATION:  “HAWBURY SANK BACK IN HIS SEAT, OVERWHELMED.”]

“No, by Jove!  And look here, old chap, you’ll overlook this little outburst, won’t you?  In South America I was always cool, and you did the hard swearing, my boy.  I’ll be cool again; and what’s more, I’ll get back to South America again as soon as I can.  Once on the pampas, and I’ll be a man again.  I tell you what it is, I’ll start to-morrow.  What do you say?  Come.”

“Oh no,” said Hawbury, coolly; “I can’t do that.  I have business, you know.”

“Business?”

“Oh yes, you know—­Ethel, you know.”

“By Jove! so you have.  That alters the matter.”

“But in any case I wouldn’t go, nor would you.  I still am quite unable to understand you.  Why you should grow desperate, and swear at yourself, and then propose South America, is quite beyond me.  Above all, I don’t yet see any reason why you should give up your child-angel.  You were all raptures but a short time since.  Why are you so cold now?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Dacres.

“So you said ever so long ago.”

“It’s a sore subject, and difficult to speak about.”

“Well, old man, I’m sorry for you; and don’t speak about it at all if it gives you pain.”

“Oh, I’ll make a clean breast of it.  You’ve told your affair, and I’ll tell mine.  I dare say I’ll feel all the better for it.”

“Drive on, then, old man.”

Dacres rose, took a couple of glasses of beer in quick succession, then resumed his seat, then picked out a cigar from the box with unusual fastidiousness, then drew a match, then lighted the cigar, then sent out a dozen heavy volumes of smoke, which encircled him so completely that he became quite concealed from Hawbury’s view.  But even this cloud did not seem sufficient to correspond with the gloom of his soul.  Other clouds rolled forth, and still others, until all their congregated folds encircled him, and in the midst there was a dim vision of a big head, whose stiff, high, curling, crisp hair, and massive brow, and dense beard, seemed like some living manifestation of cloud-compelling Jove.

For some time there was silence, and Hawbury said nothing, but waited for his friend to speak.

At last a voice was heard—­deep, solemn, awful, portentous, ominous, sorrow-laden, weird, mysterious, prophetic, obscure, gloomy, doleful, dismal, and apocalyptic.