“Good evening, Principal,” said he.  “Glad to see you in the place again, sir.  Have you heard of a place called Turrifs Road Station?  ’Tain’t on our map.”

Trenholme gave the questioner a severe glance of inquiry.  The scene outside, and his proposed inquiry concerning it, passed from his mind, for he had no means of divining that this question referred to it.  The place named was known to him only by his brother’s letter.  The men, he saw, were in a rough humour, and because of the skeleton in his closet he jumped to the thought that something had transpired concerning his brother, something that caused them to jeer.  He did not stop to think what it might be.  His moral nature stiffened itself to stand for truth and his brother at all costs.

“I know the place;” he said.

His words had a stern impressiveness which startled his hearers.  They were only playing idly with the pros and cons of a newspaper tale; but this man, it would seem, treated the matter very seriously.

Hutchins had no desire to annoy, but he did not know how to desist from further question, and, supposing that the story of Cameron was known, he said in a more ingratiating way: 

“Well, but, sir, you don’t want us to believe the crazy tale of the station hand there, that he saw the dead walk?”

Again there was that in Trenholme’s manner which astonished his hearers.  Had they had the slightest notion they were offending him, they would have known it was an air of offence, but, not suspecting that, they could only judge that he thought the subject a solemn one.

“I would have you believe his word, certainly.  He is a man of honour.”

A facetious man here took his pipe out of his mouth and winked to his companions.  “You’ve had private information to that effect, I suppose, Principal.”

Very haughtily Trenholme assented.

He had not been in the room more than a few moments when all this had passed.  He was handed a newspaper, which gave still another account of the remote incident which was now at last ticklings the ears of the public, and he was told that the man Cameron was supposed to be the preacher who was now without.  He heard what part Harkness had played, and he saw that his brother’s name was not mentioned in the public print, was apparently not known.  He took a little pains to be genial (a thing he was certainly not in the habit of doing in that room), in order to dissipate any impression his offended manner might have given, and went home.

It is not often a man estimates at all correctly the effect of his own words and looks; he would need to be a trained actor to do this, and, happily, most men are not their own looking-glasses.  Trenholme thought he had behaved in a surly and stiff manner, and, had the subject been less unpleasant, he would rather have explained at once where and who his brother was.  This was his remembrance of his call at the hotel, but the company there saw it differently.