"I am not responsible for my beliefs to _you_, Eric, whatever you may be to _me_, and perhaps if you have no respect for me as your aunt, you will please to recollect that I am also your godmother. It all comes of disobedience. 'Thou shalt not make to thyself--'" Rick leant back in his chair and roared. "And if you can't even remember that," she went on, bristling with dignity, "you might recollect the punishment meted out to the children who mocked at the bald heads." She paused, her hand went up suddenly to her coils of hair, she tried hard to keep her countenance, failed, and Mr. Macdonald's deep-toned laughter made a bass to her treble and Rick's tenor. That, nine times out of ten, was the end of Miss Willina's wrath. II "I found it," said Professor Endorwick, laying Numbo Jumbo on the drawing-room table at Roederay, "as I was coming over the moor this morning, in order, Lady Maud, to finish a delightful walking tour by a still more delightful visit. Oddly enough, I found something similar on the Grâda Sands yesterday, but this, I fear, is genuine, and therefore quite uninteresting. I have it in my knapsack if you will allow me. There! from the fracture you will observe that it has formed part of a handle, probably the paddle of a war canoe, as this grotesque, which represents the savage conception of Äte or Fate, is generally used for that purpose. It has drifted here, doubtless in the Gulf Stream, is therefore, as I said before, uninteresting, since most museums possess something of the sort. This, however, is very different. It is, you will again observe, of very recent construction. This, joined to the fact that I found it on a _harp_ or Viking's tomb famous in local tradition, points, to my mind, conclusively towards the survival amongst this primitive people of some, if not the original, cult of Fate. I need scarcely say that nothing is more difficult to track home than the faint footstep of a discredited belief, simply because rash inquiry results in prompt denial. I must therefore be careful, and I will ask you also, for the present at least, to preserve a kindly silence on my discovery." He looked round his company as if it were a full meeting of the British Association after lunch. As a matter of fact, it consisted of Lady Maud, her husband, and Eustace Gordon. They had barely finished breakfast when the professor, ignorant of their discomfort, walked in on them according to previous arrangement. Mr. Wilson, a slight, pleasant-looking man with a short beard covering his chin,--or want of chin,--had been moving restlessly from window to fireplace and back again during this speech, now drumming with his fingers on the sill, now transferring his attention to a fisherman's barometer on the mantelpiece, again slipping his hands to his pockets as if to force himself to quiet. Lady Maud, meanwhile, stood by the table looking at Numbo Jumbo and the despised original.