"My answer embraces the whole question from my own point of view," replied Hardcastle. "The savages got their idea of dual personality from phenomena of nature which they were unable to explain--from their dreams, from their own shadows on the earth and reflections in water, from the stroke of the lightning and the crash of the thunder, from the echo of their own voices, thrown back to them from crags and cliffs. These things created their superstitions. Ignorance bred terror, and terror bred gods and demons--first out of the forces of nature. That is the appalling mental legacy handed down in varying shapes to all the children of men. We labor under them to this day." "You would dare to say our most sacred verities have sprung from the dreams of savages?" Hardcastle smiled. "It is true. And dreams, we further know, are often the result of indigestion. Early man didn't understand the art of cookery, and therefore no doubt his stomach had a great deal to put up with. We have to thank his bear steaks and wolf chops for a great deal of our cherished nonsense, no doubt." Sir Walter, marking the clergyman's flashing eyes, changed the subject, and Septimus May, who observed his concern, restrained a bitter answer. But he despaired of the detective from that moment, and proposed to himself a future assault on such detested modern opinions when opportunity occurred. After breakfast Mr. Hardcastle begged for a private interview with the master of Chadlands, and for two hours sat in his study and took him through the case from the beginning. He put various questions concerning the members of the recent house party, and presently begged that Henry Lennox might join them. "I should like to hear the account of what passed on the night between him and Captain May," he said. Henry joined them, and detailed his experience. While he talked, Hardcastle appraised him, and perceived that certain nebulous opinions, which had begun to crystallize in his own mind, could have no real foundation. The detective believed that he was confronted with a common murder, and on hearing Henry's history, as part of Sir Walter's story with the rest, perceived that the old lover of Mary Lennox had last seen her husband alive, had drunk with him, and been the first to find him dead. Might not Henry have found an eastern poison in Mesopotamia? But his conversation with the young man, and the unconscious revelation of Henry himself, shattered the idea. Lennox was innocent enough. For a moment, the information of uncle and nephew exhausted, Hardcastle returned to the matter of the breakfast discussion.