“Very strong circumstances. You have been now living here nearly a week, in a privacy which no gentleman would ever think of observing. You have hemmed yourself in by a mystery, sir; you have studiously concealed your name--your connections--and defaced every mark by which you could be known or traced. This, sir, is not the conduct of a gentleman; and argues either actual or premeditated guilt.” “You seem heated, sir, and you also reason in resentment, whatever may have occasioned it. And so a gentleman is not to make an excursion to a country town in a quiet way--perhaps to recruit his health, perhaps to relax his mind, perhaps to gratify a whim--but he must be pounced upon by some outrageous dispenser of magisterial justice, who thinks, that, because he wishes to live quietly and unknown, he must be some cutthroat, or raw-head-and-bloody-bones coming to eat half the country?” “I dare say, sir, that is all very fine, and very humorous; but when these mysterious vagabonds--” The eye of the stranger blazed; lightning itself, in fact, was not quicker than the fire which gleamed from it, as the baronet uttered the last words. He walked over deliberately, but with a step replete with energy and determination: “How, sir,” said he, “do you dare to apply such an expression to me?” The baronet's eye quailed. He paused a moment, during which he could perceive that the stranger had a spirit not to be tampered with. “No, sir,” he replied, “not exactly to you, but when persons such as you come in this skulking way, probably for the purpose of insinuating themselves into families of rank--” “Have I, sir, attempted to insinuate myself into yours,” asked the stranger, interrupting him. “When such persons come under circumstances of strong suspicion,” said the other, without replying to him, “it is the business of every gentleman in the country to keep a vigilant eye upon them.” “I shall hold myself accountable to no such gentleman,” replied the stranger; “but will consider every man, no matter what his rank or character may be, as unwarrantably impertinent, who arrogantly attempts to intrude himself in affairs that don't--” he was about to add, “that don't concern him,” when he paused, and added, “into any man's affairs. Every man has a right to travel incognito, and to live incognito, if he chooses; and, on that account, sir, so long as I wish to maintain mine, I shall allow no man to assume the right of penetrating it. If this has been the object of your visit, you will much oblige me by relinquishing the one, and putting an end to the other, as soon as may be.” “As a magistrate, sir, I demand to know your name,” said the baronet, who thought that, in the stranger's momentary hesitation, he had observed symptoms of yielding. “As an independent man, sir, and a gentleman, I shall not answer such a question.” “You brave me, sir--you defy me.” continued the other, his face still pale, but baleful in its expression.