The result of this letter was, that within six weeks of its having been written, there lounged into the library of the Red Gables one afternoon an immensely tall, broad-shouldered young man, with a great shock of loose black hair; a pale, rough-hewn, plain face, clever and attractive; and with a wonderfully delicate forehead—a young man who was in the habit of saying the roughest kind of things in the softest of voices. This was Roger Camm, the former friend and playfellow of the two Langstroths when they had all been boys together. According to his own account, he had turned himself into a working man in order to save his own self-respect, and because he had no affection for the Church, which had treated his father so scurvily. According to Michael Langstroth, he was the best and truest friend that ever a man had. And according to Gilbert, he was a shrewd, ‘levelheaded’ man of business, who was going to help him to start his factories, and, incidentally, set his, Gilbert’s, fortunes going in the right direction. ‘Here I am,’ was Roger Camm’s laconical greeting. ‘And not before you were wanted,’ replied Gilbert, rising to meet him with outstretched hand and his sweetest smile. ‘You are welcome as flowers in May.’ ‘That shows my value to be high,’ said Roger. ‘There are not many to be found, then, in these latitudes. Where am I to put up till I find rooms?’ ‘Why, here, of course. Everything is ready for you. But I believe Michael expects you to dine with him to-night.’ Thus Roger Camm was, as it were, inducted into his new position. He told himself that night, before he went to sleep, that it was odd that his life’s course should bring him back to Bradstane, the little country market-town which he despised; and that his lot, at a critical period, should again be cast in with these others whom he had known when young, but from whom he had believed himself to be, practically, finally severed when he had left his native place to begin work in a great city. CHAPTER VII MICHAEL, ROGER, GILBERT Talking with Michael one day, soon after his arrival, on the subject of the factories, Roger discovered to his surprise that his friend strongly disapproved of the enterprise. ‘I am not one of the company, you may be very sure,’ he said. ‘I wish I had known. I would have taken care to have nothing to do with it,’ cried Roger, perturbed.