‘No; I see you don’t want to come. I know your reasons. No,’ he added, as Myles started, ‘not your very reason, but I know that when you left Thanshope it was in the hope never to see it again; and that desire has not yet changed.’ ‘No it has never changed,’ he owned. ‘But, if I guess rightly, there is no actual, tangible obstacle to your return. It is a strong private feeling of repugnance on your own part, arising from some cause or causes to me unknown. Is it not so?’ ‘Yes, it is so.’ ‘Well; still I ask you to come. Come and try, at least. Fight it down, and come and revisit your city of the dead. Come and try whether there may not be new life hidden for you there.’ Myles shook his head. ‘There is not that,’ said he. ‘Then, to put it in another light, come because I ask you, to oblige me. Surely all that wrath and misunderstanding which once existed between us is burnt out for ever now. I am certain we can act together in most things. And--excuse me, I have no wish to be impertinent--but let me tell you that Stonegate is always empty now; and if it were not, I have introduced you to my wife.’ Myles turned abruptly away. Stonegate always empty! Whether empty or inhabited, he had forfeited all right to approach it. ‘With the best wishes in the world for friendship, that would have divided us, would it not?’ continued Sebastian, who, when he took up the probe, was not wont to lay it down again, with the operation half finished, deterred by the anguished face or fainting mien of the patient. ‘Yes,’ was the only answer. ‘But it is gone. I know not what life may hold for you in the future; I do know that you have suffered in the past, and that places where one has had that kind of suffering are haunted, and full of ghosts; but again I urge you--come! I think you are leading a morbid, foolish life here, rendered, by the motives which prompt it, not a particularly healthy one, and----’ ‘Say no more, sir. I will come. I knew I should come, as soon as you asked me. No wish of yours could be other than a command to me now. It was only that I could not force myself to say yes. But now I say it. I will go whenever you like--that is, whenever Herr Süsmeyer will spare me.’ ‘That is spoken as I hoped you would speak,’ said Sebastian, heartily. ‘Let us shake hands upon it.’ ‘On my agreement to take you for my lawful master, and serve you faithfully and honestly,’ said Myles, with rather a forced smile, as he grasped Sebastian’s hand. ‘I suppose that is the foundation of all such agreements, but I trust we shall be something more worthy of us both than mere master and servant. At least, you need not be afraid of rusting. I have dozens of plans which I have never had time or assistants to carry out. Now, with my wife, and I hope you to help me too, I shall get along splendidly.’