Gilead regarded the speaker steadily. What despicable villainy was this, to be so cowed and humbled under the superstition that his personal bulk was directly attributable to his crimes! So he read the implication; and he could have laughed, in another mood, over the retributions exacted by self-indulgence. But that Winsom Wyllie, the sinister, the demoniac, the masterful, should have resolved himself into this! Well, all wickedness was vanity, but he had not thought to encounter a vanity quite so abject. The stranger turned heavily, and, motioning Gilead to accompany him, slouched towards the rearward shed. “Yes,” he said, “my thoughts weigh me down; they are too much for my single endurance; that was why I wanted a companion to distract me from them--to take me out of myself.” There were a couple of blocks and stools standing ready, with bill-hooks and a plentiful supply of logs waiting to be split. The stranger took his seat, and Gilead, divesting himself of his coat, followed his example. The other observed him with a doleful curiosity. “This is new to you,” he said. “I daresay you are wondering how I come to have the run of the place. It is closed, as a matter of fact, from lack of patronage by the unemployed, who nevertheless themselves declare that they are as numerous and deserving as ever. I hired it for a week, stipulating that my personal labour should be set against the rent. If you want to spare your fingers, don’t hold your billet like that. Watch me.” For several minutes he hewed and laboured in a perfect frenzy of energy, and only desisted when he was streaming from every pore. “Ha!” he said. “I lard the lean earth, like--like whom?” “Falstaff, I think,” said Gilead. The stranger looked at him with a slightly stimulated but still rueful curiosity. “You are a reader,” he said; “you answer to your own description in other respects. Why do you call yourself George Barnwell?” “Why not?” said Gilead stiffly. “A common thief and highwayman?” “I never thought of that,” said Gilead unguardedly. “Didn’t you?” said the stranger languidly--“a pseudonym, as I thought, and not a very well-chosen one. Now, would you mind telling me--?” “Assumed, I confess,” said Gilead. “The guess was mine,” said the stranger. “Your clothes, your bearing--ah, well! You conceal something?” “My name.” “Anything else?” “My object, perhaps.” “Indeed? Is not this frankness, now, to be mutual?” “It was partly,” said Gilead, “that I wished to investigate a very curious affair. I am a seeker after the truth, a--if I may so put it, a practical psychologist. My sole scruple was that, in applying for the post, I risked deposing a more deserving, because a more needy, candidate.” “The money was no object to you then?” “None whatever.” The other nodded with some melancholy gratification.