Rona was grateful, but stood firm. Much as he desired to know more, he felt the fine quality of faith and loyalty in so young a girl. He did wish that he could feel quite certain that there was nothing discreditable in the mystery that surrounded her. People are not usually in hiding without a reason, he reflected. He was beginning to realize that this girl was having a curious, powerful, unprecedented effect upon him. It would be terrible should it turn out that she was really the sister of a youth who led a canal horse along the towpath. Like most persons of mediocre ability, he was much influenced by the dread of ridicule. He feared to make himself ridiculous concerning the unknown maiden. His judgment approved her; but he lacked confidence in his own judgment. He walked back to Normansgrave, his mind occupied not as to the tragic circumstances of his brother's disappearance, but about the flight of a young servant girl from a harsh mistress with her brother, a bargee! CHAPTER VIII A TOUCH OF SYMPATHY "This son of mine was a self-willed youth, always too ready to utter his unchastised fancies.... He got the spur when he should have had the rein.... He, therefore, helped to fill the markets with that unripe fruit which abounds in the marts of his native country."--OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. Felix had been sent by his employers up to Basingstoke Station to bring down some parcels of rivets and special nails arriving by goods train that evening. As he stood on the platform waiting, the boat train from Southampton came rushing in, and stopped to put down a solitary passenger. This was a tall, wiry, hatchet-faced man, of about forty, with black hair, brown skin, and soft, melting dark brown eyes--eyes you would not have expected to see in that face, unless you were familiar with the Slav type. This man gave his directions to the porters in very hesitating English. He was so like the type to which Felix had been accustomed in the dynamite brotherhood, that the sight of him was actively unpleasant. And yet the young man could not help being fascinated, too. The stranger said, in painstaking English, "I wish this trunk put upon the hotel omnibus." The porter, understanding this, cheerfully shouldered the trunk and disappeared, the traveler meanwhile lighting a cigarette and gazing round the station at the town beyond with a look of interest. "Now, sir," said the porter, returning, "what are we to do with all this stuff?" It looked like machinery--curiously shaped, spiky packages sewn up in canvas. "I wish that put--how do you say?--ah, yes--_en consigne, s'il vous plait_--pardon, I would mean--_en consigne_--hein?" The porter looked blank. "No parly frongsay," he remarked, resentfully. "Wants you to cloak it, fathead," said Felix, unable to hold his tongue. "To cloak it--eh? Why in blazes don't 'e say so, then. This way, mounseer."