And what about the dead? Alas! a yearning for their reincarnation is always, I fear, the most artificial of sentiments. A re-embodied spirit would be the last to find a welcome in his old place. His effect upon the laws of property would be so destructive, would it not? his claims on our maturer sympathies, such an anachronism and a bore? Jerusalem, I think, must have been deeply relieved when its wandering dead lay down again. Now, I was in the very act of starting for the house, when I saw the figure of his lordship himself coming briskly over the snow towards me--and from the direction of the road. I paused, in some astonishment, to await him. Already, I think, a premonition of the truth was foreclosing on me. There was an indescribable air of elation in his face, pink with exercise, and in his sprightly step and the almost imperceptible cock of his hat. Could this be the collapsed and stricken soul from whom I had parted not so many hours ago? A sort of desperate effrontery seized me. “You have come from Market Grazing, sir?” I said as he reached me. “Well, that was against my advice.” The roses in his cheeks deepened, I could have thought, to damask. But he was full of good humour, and would not be put out of it. “Pooh!” he said, with a little embarrassed laugh; and, taking my arm, walked me slowly up the path through the woods. “You have established a claim to some licence, Gaskett; but you must remember that advice is not prescription.” “I am glad, at least, you admit the claim, sir. It would appear a more gracious admission, perhaps, if you were to address me less formally.” He turned to look at me with an odd expression of challenge, or, it might be, propitiation. “Well, as to that,” he said, “I have something to say. In the meantime, I am to congratulate you, and myself, on the correctness of your surmise.” “She was there--at Pugsley’s?” “Yes.” “Well, sir?” “I have full hopes the matter may be accommodated--hushed up. It comes to be merely a question of the figure.” “Good God, sir!” We stopped simultaneously, falling apart. For a moment a silence fell between us. The colour had left his face a little; but his mouth was set in a line of resolution--defiance, even. “Do you mean to tell me, sir,” I said in a low voice, “that what you are implying is a money compromise with Mr Dalston?” “Yes, that is exactly it,” he answered shortly. I drew and expelled a deep breath. It was to be battle, then--my rights against a sentiment. “Lord Skene,” I said clearly, “do you understand what this decision means to me? Have you drawn any real inference from the facts I have put before you?” “Hush, my boy, hush!” he said pacifically. “I have reached a point, certainly, as you have, beyond which all is speculation and surmise.” “As yet--yes.”