“Ah!” said Mr. Fern, with mild severity, “this must not occur again, Joseph. I sanction no such underhand proceedings. If you are dissatisfied with your position, tell me so plainly, and you are welcome to go seek a less indulgent master.” “Oh, I’m all right, Mr. Fern!” The other turned benevolently to the perplexed baronet. Throughout, the man Brander had stood silent, his hands thrust into his pockets, his hat pulled over his eyes, a slight grin creasing his parchment jaws. “I must call your interest in me and my affairs unaccountable, sir,” said the former gravely; “but it is no doubt to be attributed to purely friendly motives.” He bowed cumbrously, signified to Joseph to go before, and passed out with his other companion into the passage, closing the door gently to behind him. Left to himself, Mr. Tuke stood for a moment dumfounded and quite at a loss as to what to do next. Then, with a quick, impatient exclamation, he flung himself into a chair before the hearth. Why did he wait on at all? He told himself that it was for a lull in the storm that crashed and bellowed overhead. All the same he knew that he delayed going for the reason that makes men linger out a fruitless suit--because he impotently hoped for some anti-climax to justify his action. Presently, rising from a fog of perplexity, he pulled with violence a bell-rope that hung near him. The landlord himself answered the summons, and immediately. “Bring me a bottle of port,” said the visitor; and added suggestively, “uncorked.” Mr. Breeds accepted the order, with some unintelligible response; vanished, brought back the wine and a glass, and offered the bottle to the other’s inspection. “Good. Open it and go.” He sat and sipped and pondered the situation. There was no fire in the grate before him, but a bundle of the towy stuff known as “crinoline”; and this, as the wind moaned down the chimney, heaved and pulsed like a thing that breathed very silently. After a time this stealthy, life-like action wrought a certain uneasiness in him. He filled another glass, drained it, and glanced with a growing sickness of alarm at the palpitating mass. Good God! it was swelling, writhing in monstrous and unnatural motion! He tried to shriek out. His voice had left him. He could hear it very faint and agonized fifty miles away. He struggled to rise to his feet. The thing was out of the fire-place now--climbing his knees--lapping him in, overwhelming him from foot to throat. With a liquid grunt, that rang in his own congested brain like his dying yell, he sank down in a heap and into immediate unconsciousness. CHAPTER XVIII.