“Lord Arranmore has been marvellously kind to me,” Brooks agreed.  “To tell you the truth, Mr. Ascough, I feel almost inclined to add incomprehensibly kind.”

The older man stroked his grey moustache thoughtfully.

“Lord Arranmore is eccentric,” he remarked.  “Has always been eccentric, and will remain so, I suppose, to the end of the chapter.  You are the one who profits, however, and I am very glad of it.”

“Eccentricity,” Brooks remarked, “is, of course, the only obvious explanation of his generosity so far as I am concerned.  But it has occurred to me, Mr. Ascough, to wonder whether the friendship or connection between him and my father was in any way a less slight thing than I have been led to suppose.”

Mr. Ascough shrugged his shoulders.

“Lord Arranmore,” he said, “has told you, no doubt, all that there is to be told.”

Brooks sat at his desk, frowning slightly, and tapping the blotting-paper with a pen-holder.

“All that Lord Arranmore has told me,” he said, “is that my father occupied a cabin not far from his on the banks of Lake Ono, that they saw little of each other, and that he only found out his illness by accident.  That my father then disclosed his name, gave him his papers and your address.  There was merely the casual intercourse between two Englishmen coming together in a strange country.”

“That is what I have always understood,” Mr. Ascough agreed.  “Have you any reason to think otherwise?

“No definite reason—­except Lord Arranmore’s unusual kindness to me,” Brooks remarked.  “Lord Arranmore is one of the most self-centred men I ever knew—­and the least impulsive.  Why, therefore, he should go out of his way to do me a kindness I cannot understand.”

“If this is really an enigma to you,” Mr. Ascough answered, “I cannot help you to solve it.  Lord Arranmore has been the reverse of communicative to me.  I am afraid you must fall back upon his lordship’s eccentricity.”

Mr. Ascough rose, but Brooks detained him.

“You have plenty of time for your train,” he said.  “Will you forgive me if I go over a little old ground with you—­for the last time?”

The lawyer resumed his seat.

“I am in no hurry,” he said, “if you think it worth while.”

“My father came to you when he was living at Stepney—­a stranger to you.”

“A complete stranger,” Mr. Ascough agreed.  “I had never seen him before in my life.  I did a little trifling business for him in connection with his property.”

“He told you nothing of his family or relatives?”

“He told me that he had not a relation in the world.”

“You knew him slightly, then?” Brooks continued, “all the time he was in London?  And when he left for that voyage he came to you.”

“Yes.”

“He made over his small income then to my mother in trust for me.  Did it strike you as strange that he should do this instead of making a will?”