The blush of ingenuous youth mantled in Jack's cheeks for a moment or two. He could not help noticing--and in after-days it was a point which often recurred to him--that his host never smiled, that no flitting shade of expression ever changed the mask-like, bloodless features. They remained wholly unmoved in their set, waxen pallor. "And now," resumed Mr. Ellerslie, "will there be any impropriety in my asking my guest to favor me with his name? But if, for any reason whatever, he would prefer to remain incognito, he has merely to intimate as much and his reticence will be duly respected." Mr. Jack was prepared for the question, and he answered it without hesitation. "If, Mr. Ellerslie, we should ever meet in after-days, as I sincerely trust we may, and you should accost me by the name of Frank Nevill, you will find me answer to it." "It is a name I promise not to forget. You seem to have got _my_ name quite pat, Mr. Nevill." Mr. Nevill, or Mr. Prentice, or whatever his real name was, laughed a little uneasily. "It was from the--er--gentleman who acted as my guide and brought me here that I learnt it." "How you learnt it, my dear sir, is a matter of no moment, so long as you know it. But I am forgetting that the grog is waiting to be mixed. You will join me over a tumbler, of course?" But this his guest politely but firmly declined doing. Mr. Ellerslie was careful not to press him farther than good breeding sanctioned, which, however, did not hinder him from mixing a stiff and steaming tumbler for himself. Having tasted it and apparently found it to his liking, he went back to his seat by the fire. "You were good enough just now, Mr. Nevill, to express a hope that you and I might some day meet again. Such a meeting, although not beyond the bounds of possibility--as, indeed, in this world, what is?--hardly comes within the range of likelihood. You are just on the point of stepping into the arena--the struggle, the turmoil, the dust, the elation of victory or, it may be, the bitterness of defeat, lie still before you; while for me it is all over. I have come out of the fight with reversed arms, I have left the sweating crowd and its plaudits--plaudits never showered upon me!--behind me forever. Here, in this rude hermitage--somewhat bleak, of a truth, in winter time--I hope to pass the remainder of my days, as Mr. Pope so aptly expresses, it, 'the world forgetting, by the world forgot.' Therefore, my dear Mr. Nevill, the chances are that after to-night you and I are hardly likely to meet again. To you belong the golden possibilities of the future, to me nothing but memories." He stirred his grog, took a good pull at it, and then went on with his monologue:--