With the last words his interest seemed to fail suddenly. He slightly drooped his head, and sat like one listening for some distant sound. I watched him closely. Gernham’s declaration that if Vernon were maltreating the spaniel he must be mentally diseased was present in my mind. I was looking for symptoms that would guide me to a conclusion one way or the other. I saw a great change in Vernon—a painful change. He looked like a man suffering under some terrible distress, which had altered, for the time, his whole outlook upon life. But I felt that I was with a perfectly sane man. As I regarded him he seemed to recover his consciousness of my presence, glanced up, and met my scrutiny. “What is it?” he said. “Why do you look at me like that?” I felt embarrassed. “What’s Gernham been saying to you?” he added sharply. “Gernham—oh, you know him,” I answered. “You know where his heart is, with the animals. What an enthusiast he is!” “He’s been talking to you about his work then. Well, did he tell you that we’ve had a quarrel, he and I?” “He said your work together had come to a stop, for the moment. Why should it?” “Why? Oh, well, sometimes Gernham is too blunt, says more than he, than any man ought to say to another. There is a limit to frankness; occasionally he oversteps it. He overstepped it with me, and I resented it. Don’t you think I was right?” I felt that he was being strangely insincere with me as he had been insincere with Gernham, trying to raise a cloud which would obscure the reality of his mind, the true scope of his intentions. “I see no reason why two such men as you should quarrel,” I answered. “Especially if it interrupts, and perhaps, to some extent, cripples a splendid work. You should sink your little differences, and go on together, hand in hand, to further the noble cause you love.” He had been trying to play me. I was now trying to play him. Yet, as I finished, a genuine warmth came, I think, into my voice. It moved him. I could see that, for he looked up at me as if demanding my sympathy. Suddenly I felt a profound pity for him, a profound desire to help him. But how? Against what? “Perhaps we shall be friends again,” he said. “But he misunderstands me, and you, Luttrell, perhaps you misunderstand me too.” “I!” “Yes—you. Are you sure that, in these last days, you have never had any cruel suspicions of me? Are you sure you have not any cruel suspicions of me now?” “If I had, if I have, you could easily clear them up,” I answered. “By the way, how’s the dog getting on? All right?” His face changed at once, hardened. “Oh, yes!” he said. “I should like to have another look at him,” I said. “Where is he?” “He’s downstairs in the study. Didn’t you know it?” “I—I did think I heard something scratching and whining. Why do you keep him shut up?” “He hasn’t got accustomed to being with me yet. If I let him out he might bolt.” “Oh!” “I don’t want to have spent my twelve pounds for nothing,” he added.