“We will try one of them to-morrow night,” Dominey suggested.  “We might spend half an hour or so in the cellars, if we have any time to spare.”

“And another half an hour,” Mr. Mangan said gravely, “I should like to spend in interviewing Mrs. Unthank.  Apart from any other question, I do not for one moment believe that she is the proper person to be entrusted with the care of Lady Dominey.  I made up my mind to speak to you on this subject, Sir Everard, as soon as we had arrived here.”

“Mrs. Unthank was old Mr. Felbrigg’s housekeeper and my wife’s nurse when she was a child,” Dominey reminded his companion.  “Whatever her faults may be, I believe she is devoted to Lady Dominey.”

“She may be devoted to your wife,” the lawyer admitted, “but I am convinced that she is your enemy.  The situation doesn’t seem to me to be consistent.  Mrs. Unthank is firmly convinced that, whether in fair fight or not, you killed her son.  Lady Dominey believes that, too, and it was the sight of you after the fight that sent her insane.  I cannot but believe that it would be far better for Lady Dominey to have some one with her unconnected with this unfortunate chapter of your past.”

“We will consult Doctor Harrison to-morrow,” Dominey said.  “I am very glad you came down with me, Mangan,” he went on, after a minute’s hesitation.  “I find it very difficult to get back into the atmosphere of those days.  I even find it hard sometimes,” he added, with a curious little glance across the table, “to believe that I am the same man.”

“Not so hard as I have done more than once,” Mr. Mangan confessed.

“Tell me exactly in what respects you consider me changed?” Dominey insisted.

“You seem to have lost a certain pliability, or perhaps I ought to call it looseness of disposition,” he admitted.  “There are many things connected with the past which I find it almost impossible to associate with you.  For a trifling instance,” he went on, with a slight smile, inclining his head towards his host’s untasted glass.  “You don’t drink port like any Dominey I ever knew.”

“I’m afraid that I never acquired the taste for port,” Dominey observed.

The lawyer gazed at him with raised eyebrows.

“Not acquired the taste for port,” he repeated blankly.

“I should have said reacquired,” Dominey hastened to explain.  “You see, in the bush we drank a simply frightful amount of spirits, and that vitiates the taste for all wine.”

The lawyer glanced enviously at his host’s fine bronzed complexion and clear eyes.

“You haven’t the appearance of ever having drunk anything, Sir Everard,” he observed frankly.  “One finds it hard to believe the stories that were going about ten or fifteen years ago.”

“The Dominey constitution, I suppose!”

The new butler entered the room noiselessly and came to his master’s chair.

“I have served coffee in the library, sir,” he announced.  “Mr. Middleton, the gamekeeper, has just called, and asks if he could have a word with you before he goes to bed to-night, sir.  He seems in a very nervous and uneasy state.”