“Ay, Robin,” said Ferne, absently, and laid the hand upon his head.  “And the bloody ghosts they pass.”

Arden spoke with emotion:  “All men when their final account is made up may have sights to see that now they dream not of.  Thou art both too much and too little what thou wast of old, and thou seest not fairly in these shadows.  I know that Philip Sidney and John Nevil have come to Ferne House, and here am I, thy oldest comrade of them all.  A sheet of paper close written with record of noble deeds becomes not worthless because of one deep blot.”

Ferne, his burst of passion past, arose and moved from table to window, from window to great chimney-piece.  There was that in the quiet, almost stealthy regularity of his motions that gave subtle suggestion of days and nights spent in pacing to and fro, to and fro, this deep-windowed room.

At last he spoke, pausing by the fireless hearth:  “I say not that it is so, nor that there is not One who may read the writing beneath the blot.  But from the time of Cain to the present hour if the blotted sheet be bound with the spotless the book is little esteemed.”

“Cain slew his brother wilfully,” said Arden.

“That also is told us,” answered the other.  “Jealousy constrained him, while constancy of soul was lacking unto me.  I know not if it was but taken from me for a time, or if, despite all seeming, I never did possess it.  I know that the dead are dead, and I know not to what ambuscade I, their leader, sent them....  I fell, not wilfully, but through lack of will.  Now, an the Godhead within me be not flown, I will recover myself,—­but never what is past and gone, never the dead flowers, never the souls I set loose, never one hour’s eternal scar!...  Enough of this.  Ride on to the inn, for Ferne House keepeth guests no longer.  To-morrow, an you choose, come again, and we will say farewell.  Why, old school-fellow! thou seest I am sane—­no hermit or madman, as the clowns of this region would have me.  But will you go?—­will you go?”

“It seems that you yourself journey to the town upon occasion,” said Arden.  “Ride with me now, Mortimer.  No country lass more sweet than the air to-day!”

The other shook his head.  “Business has taken me there.  But now that I have sold this house I at present go no more.”

“Sold this house!” echoed Arden, and with a more and more perturbed countenance began to pace the floor.  “I did never think to hear of Ferne House fallen to strange hands!  Your father—­” He paused before a picture set in the panelled wall.  “Your father loved it well.”

“My father was of pure gold,” said Sir Mortimer, “but I, his son, am of iron, or what baser metal there may be.  Now I go forth to my kind.”

“Oh! in God’s name, leave Plato alone!” cried the other. “’Tis not by that pagan’s advice that you divest yourself of house and land!”

“I wanted money,” said Ferne, dully.