“Dennis!” he cried. The man was sitting up, an expression of the most profound astonishment on his face; but all token of fever vanished. “My good fellow--you are in your senses again?” “Am I, sir? Then they are queerly lodged. Wait!” He passed his hand over his forehead in a bewildered manner. “I remember,” he muttered. “The walk and my dead mother, and then----?” “We fought our way back, Dennis. Lost and beaten we stumbled upon this unspeakable refuge, and here we have lain all night.” “This?--this?” (Whimple’s eyes were wandering over roof and floor of the little chamber.) “Surely, sir, you know where we are?” “Not I, indeed.” “In your own grounds, sir--the old ice-house in the thicket.” Tuke stared a moment; then, with a shout, scrambled up through the opening and gave out a yell of recall. There was no response. His two companions, to whatever fortune, were vanished and out of earshot. Convinced of this, he turned and slipped again into his burrow. “You are sure, Dennis?” “Quite sure, sir.” “And we have fancied ourselves buried in some isolated spinney, and looked to nothing but a lingering death where none could come nigh us through the drifts.” “Is it so bad as that? We may find it hard to win to the house even yet, then.” “Tush! you faint rogue. My heart sings like a cricket. Sir David and Captain Luvaine are gone to explore. We will have the laugh of them when they return.” “Are they away, sir?” Something of the familiar look of nervousness and hesitation came to his face. “What is it, Whimple?” The man burst out all at once: “Let me take the opportunity, now and for ever, to ease my heart of the last of its burden--to tell my dear master all that I have so long withheld from him.” “You wish to?” “I have always wished to; but while _she_ lived--sir, she was my mother, and it were bitter that a son should record his mother’s shame.” He turned away his head, so that his face fell into shadow. “The wrong she suffered was at the hands of my father that was murdered and strung up on the downs.” “Yes, yes,” said Tuke. “That is not all unexpected.” “It was a fearful wrong, sir, committed on a helpless girl; for she had flouted and dared him; and I it was that was born to be the shameful witness of my father’s violence, and the victim now of my mother’s hate and loathing, now of her furious caresses. She carried me with her into the hiding her profession secured her; for she was a bold horse-woman and popular in travelling shows. But when I was turned nine, she left me under care in a seaport town; and thereafter I saw her but at long intervals, and then to mark little but the hardening of her nature and the steady elimination from it of all kindly and social sentiments. Still, I was to learn from her own lips what, I think, a man can never find it in his sympathy to interpret--the inconsistency of a woman’s soul. No doubt that is like the figure called a parallax----”