Another man, in his place, might have been offended with me.  There was a native sweetness in Romayne’s disposition, which asserted itself even in his worst moments of nervous irritability.  He took my hand.

“Don’t be hard on me,” he pleaded.  “I will try to think of it as you do.  Make some little concession on your side.  I want to see how I get through the night.  We will return to what I said to you on board the steamboat to-morrow morning.  Is it agreed?”

It was agreed, of course.  There was a door of communication between our bedrooms.  At his suggestion it was left open.  “If I find I can’t sleep,” he explained, “I want to feel assured that you can hear me if I call to you.”

Three times in the night I woke, and, seeing the light burning in his room, looked in at him.  He always carried some of his books with him when he traveled.  On each occasion when I entered the room, he was reading quietly.  “I suppose I forestalled my night’s sleep on the railway,” he said.  “It doesn’t matter; I am content.  Something that I was afraid of has not happened.  I am used to wakeful nights.  Go back to bed, and don’t be uneasy about me.”

The next morning the deferred explanation was put off again.

“Do you mind waiting a little longer?” he asked.

“Not if you particularly wish it.”

“Will you do me another favor?  You know that I don’t like London.  The noise in the streets is distracting.  Besides, I may tell you I have a sort of distrust of noise, since—­” He stopped, with an appearance of confusion.

“Since I found you looking into the engine-room?” I asked.

“Yes.  I don’t feel inclined to trust the chances of another night in London.  I want to try the effect of perfect quiet.  Do you mind going back with me to Vange?  Dull as the place is, you can amuse yourself.  There is good shooting, as you know.”

In an hour more we had left London.

VII.

Vange Abbey is, I suppose, the most solitary country house in England. 
If Romayne wanted quiet, it was exactly the place for him.

On the rising ground of one of the wildest moors in the North Riding of Yorkshire, the ruins of the old monastery are visible from all points of the compass.  There are traditions of thriving villages clustering about the Abbey, in the days of the monks, and of hostleries devoted to the reception of pilgrims from every part of the Christian world.  Not a vestige of these buildings is left.  They were deserted by the pious inhabitants, it is said, at the time when Henry the Eighth suppress ed the monasteries, and gave the Abbey and the broad lands of Vange to his faithful friend and courtier, Sir Miles Romayne.  In the next generation, the son and heir of Sir Miles built the dwelling-house, helping himself liberally from the solid stone walls of the monastery.  With some unimportant alterations and repairs, the house stands, defying time and weather, to the present day.