“Indeed,” I said, “there is no need for you, Colonel Ray, to remain.  I am absolutely recovered now, and the old woman who looks after me will be here in the morning.”

He seemed scarcely to have heard me.  Afterwards, when I knew him better, I understood his apparent unconcern of any suggestion counter to his own.  He thought slowly and he spoke seldom, but when he had once spoken the matter, so far as he was concerned, was done with.  Lady Angela apparently was used to him, for she rose at once.  She did not shake hands, but she nodded to me pleasantly.  Colonel Ray handed her into the wagonette, and I heard the quicker throbbing of the engine as it glided off into the darkness.

It was several minutes before he returned.  I began to wonder whether he had changed his mind, and returned to Rowchester with Lady Angela.  Then the door handle suddenly turned, and he stepped in.  His hair was tossed with the wind, his shoes were wet and covered with mud, and he was breathing rather fast, as though he had been running.  I looked at him inquiringly.  He offered me no explanation.  But on his way to the chair, which he presently drew up to the fire, he paused for a full minute by the window, and shading the carriage lamp which he still carried, with his hand, he looked steadily out into the darkness.  A thought struck me.

“You have seen him!” I exclaimed.

He set down the lamp upon the table, and deliberately seated himself.

“Seen whom?” he asked, producing a pipe and tobacco.

“The man who looked in—­whose face I saw at the window.”

He struck a match and lit his pipe.

“I have seen no one,” he answered quietly.  “The face was probably a fancy of yours.  I should recommend you to forget it.”

I looked down at his marsh-stained shoes.  One foot was wet to the ankle, and a thin strip of green seaweed had wound itself around his trousers.  To any other man I should have had more to say.  Yet even in those first few hours of our acquaintance I had become, like all the others, to some extent the servant of his will, spoken or unspoken.  So I held my peace and looked away into the fire.  I felt he had something to say to me, and I waited.

He moved his head slowly towards the bookcase.

“Those books,” he asked, “are yours?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Your name then is Guy Ducaine?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever know your father?”

It was a singular question.  I looked at him quickly.  His face was sphinxlike.

“No.  Why do you ask?  Did you?”

He ignored me absolutely for several moments.  His whole attention seemed fixed upon the curling wreath of blue smoke which hung between us.

“He died, I suppose,” he continued, “when you were about twelve years old.”

I nodded.

“My uncle,” I said, “gave me a holiday and a sovereign to spend.  He told me that a great piece of good fortune had happened to me.”