Actually I found his eyes fixed on mine. They were a dark penetrating feature in his face, set under strong brows, and somehow quite at variance with the smiling good humour of his mouth. His hair, though almost white, was full and wavy as a boy’s, and contrasted strangely with his jet-black mutton-chop whiskers, and those again with the strong white line of his teeth. He was tall and excellently compact, with broad shoulders and narrow hips, and had altogether the appearance of a man entirely at his ease with himself and the world. “Do you know it--Italy?” he asked of me. “I have never been from here but to school,” I answered. “Ah!” he said: “what visions! what a prospect! That emancipation from tutelage, and all the world to follow!” He was interrupted by a quick shrill exclamation from his wife: “Look! What has happened? What is the matter with him?” She was on her feet, we were all on our feet, in an instant. Sir Maurice Carnac was fallen heaped back into his chair, his shapeless old face all wryed as if in an exhaustion of horrible laughter, incoherent sounds coming from his lips. “Carnac!” cried Lord Skene. _For to-morrow we die!_ “This is my business,” said Mr Pugsley, in an agitated voice. All honour to his creed so far, for he was terribly unnerved. The stricken man was carried upstairs by the servants, followed by the minister and his lordship. We all waited, huddled into a silence unbroken but for the whimpering of the women. Only Mrs Dalston remained quite passionless and unmoved. Once I saw her husband quietly offer to take her hand in his, and I saw her as quietly repulse him. His, according to the feminine persuasion, was an irresistible personality, all black and white and pink, and inevitably suggestive of past triumphs. She was the only one, I dare swear, who had ever been able to keep him at arm’s length; and that, perhaps, was the secret of her hold over him. Presently Lord Skene came down. His hand was shaking and his lips, as he spilt out a glass of wine and swallowed it. “Pugsley asked him if he was saved,” he stuttered, “and he answered that he’d be damned if he wasn’t. There was no refuting that. Poor old Maurice!” Presently he recollected himself, and begged his company to stand not upon the order of their going, but to acquit him of any suspicion that such an awful calamity had been imminent. It was Mr Dalston who reassured and commiserated him in terms of the readiest and most delicate sympathy. Sir Maurice Carnac died that night. CHAPTER IX. I VISIT CLAPHAM