“If I had not lived all my life amongst ghosts,” said Luvaine, “I should fear this house of yours, Mr. Tuke.” He rose as he spoke (the three gentlemen were sitting over their wine in the great dining-hall of “Delsrop”), and, walking to the casement, plucked aside a corner of the wide crimson curtain that hung thereover, and stood looking out into the night. “The dark is full of white faces,” he muttered. “They writhe with laughter and flash down and are gone. There! did you hear that?” Blythewood glanced, with a shrug of his shoulders, at his host. “Oh, Luvaine!” he cried--“damn your shuddering fancies! Come to the table, man, and take your glass like an honest soldier!” The captain dropped the curtain and walked slowly back to his place. “That I am,” he said, “and that I have been through all the buffets of Fate. But it’s trouble, David, that teaches a man to look inward; and there, does he concentrate his gaze, he acquires the gift of second sight.” “And what does it advantage him to ride with a spectre on his pillion? I’ve a shorter and pleasanter way to see double.” He lifted his glass with a jolly chuckle. “Here’s to the memory of Mr. Cutwater, the greatest broker of his age, yet who got broke himself in the end!” he cried. Luvaine declined to drink. “Oh!” said Tuke, laughing. “Give him the nail-toast, sir. He hath kept the gem in trust for you all these years.” “You are pleased to be facetious, gentlemen. It is all little of a jesting matter to me. I will not drink a murdering thief.” “Why,” said Blythewood, “he might retaliate by disputing your title, since he had the stone in his eye from the first moment of his hearing of it.” He chuckled joyously over his own pleasantry; but the other would condescend to no answer but a wave of the hand to dismiss the subject. “Do you drink the night out?” he said. “Mr. Tuke” (he turned sombrely to his host), “I would be loth to presume upon your hospitality; but, sir--sir, I must venture to hint I am here for a purpose that is not yet satisfied.” Something like a muttered oath escaped from Tuke’s lips. He, however, forced his good-humour to the front. “Why, Captain Luvaine,” he said, “I assumed that a travelled guest would prefer to postpone business to the morning.” “I cannot look upon this as business, sir, in the ordinary sense--no more than the signing of a reprieve, every moment in the delay of which is torture to him most concerned.” “Well, well--if you regard it in that light.” Blythewood protested against this unseemly wet-blanketing of a convivial meeting; but he was graciously overborne by his host, who rose and rang the bell. “Send Mr. Whimple to me,” he told the servant who answered the summons. The man came flushed and nervous. Tuke saw that the door was carefully closed; gathered with his friends about the hearth, and bade Dennis to stand by them.