"Following you? Lord, no! What makes you think of such a thing, Archdeacon? Can't a feller enjoy the evenin' air on such a lovely night as this without being accused of following a gentleman?" "You know that you are trying to annoy me." Brandon, had pulled himself up, but his hatred of that grinning face with its purple veins, its piercing eyes, was working strongly upon his nerves, so that his hands seemed to move towards it without his own impulsion. "You have been trying to annoy me for weeks now. I'll stand you no longer. If I have any more of this nuisance I'll put it into the hands of the police." Hogg spat out complacently over the grass. "Now, that _is_ an absurd thing," he said, smiling. "Because a man's tired and wants some air after his day's work he's accused of being a nuisance. It's a bit thick, that's what it is. Now, tell, Archdeacon, do you happen to have bought this 'ere town, because if so I should be glad to know it--and so would a number of others too." "Very well, then," said Brandon, moving away. "If you won't go, I will." "There's no need for temper that I can see," said Hogg. "No call for it at all, especially that we're a sort of relation now. Almost brothers, seeing as how your son has married my daughter." Lower and lower! Lower and lower! He was moving in a world now where figures, horrible, obscene and foul, could claim him, could touch him, had their right to follow him. "You will get nothing from me," Brandon answered. "You are wasting your time." "Wasting my time?" Hogg laughed. "Not me! I'm enjoying myself. I don't want anything from you except just to see you sometimes and have a little chat. That's quite enough for me! I've taken quite a liking to you, Archdeacon, which is as it should be between relations, and, often enough, it isn't so. I like to see a proud gentleman like yourself mixing with such as me. It's good for both of us, as you might say." Brandon's anger--always dangerously uncontrolled--rose until it seemed to have the whole of his body in his grasp, swaying it, ebbing and flowing with swift powerful current through his heart into his brain. Now he could only see the flushed, taunting face, the little eyes.... But Hogg's hour was not yet. He suddenly touched his cap, smiling. "Well, good evening, Archdeacon. We'll be meeting again,"--and he was gone. As swiftly as the anger had flowed now it ebbed, leaving him trembling, shaking, that strange sharp pain cutting his brain, his heart seeming to leap into his head, to beat there like a drum, and to fall back with heavy thud into his chest again. He stood waiting for calm. He was humiliated, desperately, shamefully. He could not go on here; he must leave the place. Leave it? Be driven away by that scoundrel? Never! He would face them all and show them that he was above and beyond their power.