Bertie put on an old overcoat and took a lantern. He went out from the side door. He shrank from the wet and roaring night. Such weather had a nervous effect on him: too much moisture everywhere made him feel almost imbecile. Unwilling, he went through it all. A dog barked violently at him. He peered in all the buildings. At last, as he opened the upper door of a sort of intermediate barn, he heard a grinding noise, and looking in, holding up his lantern, saw Maurice, in his shirt-sleeves, standing listening, holding the handle of a turnip-pulper. He had been pulping sweet roots, a pile of which lay dimly heaped in a corner behind him. “That you, Wernham?” said Maurice, listening. “No, it’s me,” said Bertie. A large, half-wild grey cat was rubbing at Maurice’s leg. The blind man stooped to rub its sides. Bertie watched the scene, then unconsciously entered and shut the door behind him, He was in a high sort of barn-place, from which, right and left, ran off the corridors in front of the stalled cattle. He watched the slow, stooping motion of the other man, as he caressed the great cat. Maurice straightened himself. “You came to look for me?” he said. “Isabel was a little uneasy,” said Bertie. “I’ll come in. I like messing about doing these jobs.” The cat had reared her sinister, feline length against his leg, clawing at his thigh affectionately. He lifted her claws out of his flesh. “I hope I’m not in your way at all at the Grange here,” said Bertie, rather shy and stiff. “My way? No, not a bit. I’m glad Isabel has somebody to talk to. I’m afraid it’s I who am in the way. I know I’m not very lively company. Isabel’s all right, don’t you think? She’s not unhappy, is she?” “I don’t think so.” “What does she say?” “She says she’s very content—only a little troubled about you.” “Why me?” “Perhaps afraid that you might brood,” said Bertie, cautiously. “She needn’t be afraid of that.” He continued to caress the flattened grey head of the cat with his fingers. “What I am a bit afraid of,” he resumed, “is that she’ll find me a dead weight, always alone with me down here.” “I don’t think you need think that,” said Bertie, though this was what he feared himself. “I don’t know,” said Maurice. “Sometimes I feel it isn’t fair that she’s saddled with me.” Then he dropped his voice curiously. “I say,” he asked, secretly struggling, “is my face much disfigured? Do you mind telling me?” “There is the scar,” said Bertie, wondering. “Yes, it is a disfigurement. But more pitiable than shocking.” “A pretty bad scar, though,” said Maurice. “Oh, yes.” There was a pause. “Sometimes I feel I am horrible,” said Maurice, in a low voice, talking as if to himself. And Bertie actually felt a quiver of horror. “That’s nonsense,” he said. Maurice again straightened himself, leaving the cat. “There’s no telling,” he said. Then again, in an odd tone, he added: “I don’t really know you, do I?” “Probably not,” said Bertie.