The curiosity of the whole room appeared piqued. Several of my lord’s guests pushed their chairs back and made toward the door. But what Sir Porteus and the rest of them said when they poked their heads into the windows of their respective coaches no one but a hostler could possibly confess. The tallow dip on the pitchfork was knocked over by a judicious fist, but not before it had gutted all down the cushions of the door. There was a sudden exodus of stable boots and small clothes into the dark, and from the whistling and hissing in the stable any innocent man might have imagined that horses had never been so carefully rubbed down after a two-mile drive. The boy with the beer-can was the only thing captured, and most unjustly cuffed because his ears happened to be at the right level for the easy exercise of a gentleman’s hand. It was well after midnight before Stephen Gore and his son were left alone in the great dining-room, with the air thick with the fumes of tobacco and of wine. John Gore opened the windows that faced the street. His father was standing by the Jacobean fireplace, with one elbow on the ledge of the carved oak over-mantel and the stump of a little brown cigarro between his fingers. He was frowning to himself, and looking at the dying fire upon the irons, for a log fire had been burning, though it was still September. John Gore pulled out a short clay pipe and a tortoise-shell box from a pocket. He filled the pipe leisurely, and lit it with a splinter of burning wood that he picked up with the tongs. “Well, Johnny, how is Yorkshire?” My lord, like a father, showed no discretion or sense of proportion either in the diminutives or in the vernacular renderings of his son’s name. Moreover, the Yorkshire moors were very far away, and a more vivid vista blotted them into the distance. “Shirleys has changed very little. They have a new pump in the village. All the farms are in good fettle. Swindale seems as honest as such men ever are.” My lord appeared distraught and preoccupied. “How are old Peter Hanson and his woman? Does she still wear a farthingale?” “Well—as ever, like the solid north country folk they are. I have no news, save that the new pump’s leaden snout was cut off the first week it was put up, and that a couple of deer were shot at Shirleys three days afterward. How have things passed here—in the world?” My lord put his cigarro to his lips, drew a deep breath, and expelled the smoke slowly, watching it curve under the hood of the chimney. “Oh, somewhat sadly. I have a thing to tell you, Jack.” John Gore’s face darkened perceptibly. “News?” “Yes. After all, it may not concern you much—at least—I trust not. We all have our little impulses, our chance inclinations. Do you remember, Jack, something I said to you in this very room the night you fought Phil Pembroke?” John Gore remembered that something very keenly. His eyes betrayed as much. “Does it concern Barbara Purcell?”