Lord Dennis moved his head in assent.

“To be captain of your soul!” continued Miltoun in a bitter voice; “it’s a pretty phrase!”

“Pretty enough,” murmured Lord Dennis.

Miltoun looked at him.

“And suitable to you,” he said.

“No, my dear,” Lord Dennis answered dryly, “a long way off that, thank God!”

His eyes were fixed intently on the place where a large trout had risen in the stillest toffee-coloured pool.  He knew that fellow, a half-pounder at least, and his thoughts began flighting round the top of his head, hovering over the various merits of the flies.  His fingers itched too, but he made no movement, and the ash-tree under which he sat let its leaves tremble, as though in sympathy.

“See that hawk?” said Miltoun.

At a height more than level with the tops of the hills a buzzard hawk was stationary in the blue directly over them.  Inspired by curiosity at their stillness, he was looking down to see whether they were edible; the upcurved ends of his great wings flirted just once to show that he was part of the living glory of the air—­a symbol of freedom to men and fishes.

Lord Dennis looked at his great-nephew.  The boy—­for what else was thirty to seventy-six?—­was taking it hard, whatever it might be, taking it very hard!  He was that sort—­ran till he dropped.  The worst kind to help—­the sort that made for trouble—­that let things gnaw at them!  And there flashed before the old man’s mind the image of Prometheus devoured by the eagle.  It was his favourite tragedy, which he still read periodically, in the Greek, helping himself now and then out of his old lexicon to the meaning of some word which had flown to Erebus.  Yes, Eustace was a fellow for the heights and depths!

He said quietly: 

“You don’t care to talk about it, I suppose?”

Miltoun shook his head, and again there was silence.

The buzzard hawk having seen them move, quivered his wings like a moth’s, and deserted that plane of air.  A robin from the dappled warmth of a mossy stone, was regarding them instead.  There was another splash in the pool.

Lord Dennis said gently: 

“That fellow’s risen twice; I believe he’d take a ‘Wistman’s treasure.’” Extracting from his hat its latest fly, and binding it on, he began softly to swish his line.

“I shall have him yet!” he muttered.  But Miltoun had stolen away....

The further piece of information about Mrs. Noel, already known by Barbara, and diffused by the ‘Bucklandbury News’, had not become common knowledge at the Court till after Lord Dennis had started out to fish.  In combination with the report that Miltoun had arrived and gone out without breakfast, it had been received with mingled feelings.  Bertie, Harbinger, and Shropton, in a short conclave, after agreeing that from the point of view of the election it was perhaps