‘So,’ said Mr. Dangerfield, soliloquising, ’Charles Nutter’s alive, and in prison, and what comes next?  ’Tis enough to make one believe in a devil almost!  Why wasn’t he drowned, d—­n him?  How did he get himself taken, d—­n him again?  From the time I came into this unlucky village I’ve smelt danger.  That accursed beast, a corpse, and a ghost, and a prisoner at last—­well, he has been my evil genius. If he were drowned or hanged; born to be hanged, I hope:  all I want is quiet—­just quiet; but I’ve a feeling the play’s not played out yet.  He’ll give the hangman the slip, will he:  not if I can help it, though; but caution, Sir, caution; life’s at stake—­my life’s on the cast.  The clerk’s a wise dog to get out of the way.  Death’s walking.  What a cursed fool I was when I came here and saw those beasts, and knew them, not to turn back again, and leave them to possess their paradise!  I think I’ve lost my caution and common sense under some cursed infatuation.  That handsome, insolent wench, Miss Gertrude, ’twould be something to have her, and to humble her, too; but—­but ‘tis not worth a week in such a neighbourhood.’

Now this soliloquy, which broke into an actual mutter every here and there, occurred at about eleven o’clock A.M., in the little low parlour of the Brass Castle, that looked out on the wintry river.

Mr. Dangerfield knew the virtues of tobacco, so he charged his pipe, and sat grim, white, and erect by the fire.  It is not everyone that is ‘happy thinking,’ and the knight of the silver spectacles followed out his solitary discourse, with his pipe between his lips, and saw all sorts of things through the white narcotic smoke.

’It would not do to go off and leave affairs thus; a message might follow me, eh?  No; I’ll stay and see it out, quite out.  Sturk—­Barnabas Sturk.  If he came to his speech for five minutes—­hum—­we’ll see.  I’ll speak with Mrs. Sturk about it—­we must help him to his speech—­a prating fellow; ’tis hard he should hold his tongue; yes, we’ll help him to his speech; ’tis in the interest of justice—­eternal justice—­ha, ha, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  Let Dr. Sturk be sworn—­ha, ha—­magna est veritas—­there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed; ha, ha.  Let Dr. Sturk be called.’

So the white, thin phantom of the spectacles and tobacco pipe, sitting upright by the fire, amused himself with a solitary banter.  Then he knocked the white ashes out upon the hob, stood up with his back to the fire, in grim rumination, for about a minute, at the end of which he unlocked his desk, and took forth a letter, with a large red seal.  If was more than two months old by this time, and was, in fact, that letter from the London doctor which he had expected with some impatience.

It was not very long, and standing he read it through, and his white face contracted, and darkened, and grew strangely intense and stern as he did so.