“Oh! for heaven’s sake, man, give a straightforward answer for once. I ask you what is his reputation?” “Indeed, sir, it is none of the best; though I have heard nought immediately to his discredit.” “Again and again. Isn’t it a mere slander to impute evil and back from specifying it? What is he charged with?” “Nothing, but that his house is the resort of topers and padding gentry.” “And is it on that account you make a sealed coffin of ‘Delsrop’ o’ nights and would have me suffocate in my bedroom?” The servant showed a distressed hesitation. “Is it, I say?” persisted his master. “Yes, sir--indeed--that is--oh, sir! ’tis an old habit with me. The house is isolated--dark; it lies in the shadow--my God! in what a shadow.” Mr. Tuke stared in positive amazement. Was the fellow crazed like his sister? A pretty thing if he should discover himself the keeper of a private lunatic asylum. “Control your emotions,” he said coolly. Whimple’s lips were trembling. The man had permitted himself an outburst of which for hours he would feel the effects. “I would ask you,” said Mr. Tuke, with an irrepressible little sneer--“if the question is unexciting--when did the present owner of the ‘Dog and Duck’ come into possession?” “’Twas last Martinmas, sir. The tavern then had been long to let. ’Twas last Martinmas.” “And whence did he come? Do you know?” “No, sir. I don’t know.” “Now, Mr. Whimple, I want to ask you another question. Have you any reason to understand what is implied by the Lake of Wine?” If he had accused the man of murder, the latter could not have gone a more ghastly white, or have more by his expression associated himself with that he disowned. He even staggered a little where he stood; and it was painful to witness his sick effort at self-control. “None whatever?” echoed Mr. Tuke, closely scrutinizing the servant’s face, and interpreting the tortured answer from the motion of his lips. “Your reply,” he went on, biting as acid, “is convincing, of course. Why should you know? I don’t myself, and I am as much interested in the matter as you, maybe. I only asked, because I seek the clue to a mystery that vents itself in strange visits, and secret interviews, and unaccountable sounds at night. Then, too, there is a footprint on the flower-bed under the hall-window this morning; but what of that when I have a caretaker so zealous and so scrupulous? Only, I take some amusement out of puzzles; but I am impatient, and very apt, at the last, to cut a knot that bothers me with a bullet. You can go.” He had to repeat his permission before the servant seemed to understand and to gather the nerve to retreat. But, the moment he was vanished, the baronet clapped his hand on the table, with an oath. “The fellow is in the league against me, whatever it is!” he cried in inward fierceness; and his soul rejoiced that at last it had some tangible justification for its innate antipathy to the man.