“Not particularly,” Mr. Ascough declared.  “As you know, it is not an unusual course.”

“It did not suggest to you any determination on his part never to return to England?”

“Certainly not.”

“He left England on friendly terms with my mother?”

“Certainly.  She and he were people for whom I and every one who knew anything of their lives had the highest esteem and admiration.”

“You can imagine no reason, then, for my father leaving England for good?”

“Certainly not!”

“You know of no reason why he should have abandoned his trip to Australia and gone to Canada?”

“None!”

“His doing so is as inexplicable to you as to me?”

“Entirely.”

“You have never doubted Lord Arranmore’s story of his death?”

“Never.  Why should I?”

“One more question,” Brooks said.  “Do you know that lately I have met a traveller—­a man who visited Lord Arranmore in Canada, and who declared to his certain knowledge there was no other human dwelling-house within fifty miles of Lord Arranmore’s cabin?”

“He was obviously mistaken.”

You think so?

“It is certain.”

Brooks hesitated.

“My question,” he said, “will have given you some idea of the uncertainty I have felt once or twice lately, owing to the report of the traveller Lacroix, and Lord Arranmore’s unaccountable kindness to me.  You see, he isn’t an ordinary man.  He is not a philanthropist by any means, nor in any way a person likely to do kindly actions from the love of them.  Now, do you know of any facts, or can you suggest anything which might make the situation clearer to me?”

“I cannot, Mr. Brooks,” the older man answered, without hesitation.  “If you take my advice, you will not trouble yourself any more with fancies which seem to me—­pardon me—­quite chimerical.  Accept Lord Arranmore’s kindness as the offshoot of some sentimental feeling which he might well have entertained towards a fellow-countryman by whose death-bed he had stood in that far-away, lonely country.  You may even yourself be mistaken in Lord Arranmore’s character, and you can remember, too, that after all what means so much to you costs him nothing—­is probably for his own advantage.”

Brooks rose and took up his hat.

“I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Ascough,” he said.  “Yours, after all, is the common-sense view of the affair.  If you like I will walk up to the station.  I am going that way. . . .”

So Brooks, convinced of their folly, finally discarded certain uncomfortable thoughts which once or twice lately had troubled him.  He dined at Enton that night, and improved his acquaintance with Lady Caroom and her daughter, who were still staying there.  Although this was not a matter which he had mentioned to Mr. Ascough, there was something which he found more inexplicable even than Lord Arranmore’s