"When I'd been here a week or two I began to see that my task wasn't quite so simple as it had appeared--you can't attack a man situated as Gladwyne is without hurting innocent people. Indeed, I've spent hours wondering how, when the time comes, I can clear Vernon's memory, with the least possible damage--that is my business, not the punishing of Gladwyne, though he deserves no consideration. As you say, a man may make a bad break and pull up again, but this one has had his chance and has gone in deeper. What he's doing now--helping to ruin that lad in cold-blood--is almost worse than the other offense." Nasmyth made an acquiescent gesture. "It's true; let it go at that. I don't see how the thing can be stopped. There's a fish rising in the slack yonder!" Lisle saw a silvery gleam in a strip of less-troubled water behind a boulder and taking up his rod he cast the gaudy fly across the ripple. There was a jar, a musical clinking of the reel, and when Nasmyth waded in with ready net all thought of Gladwyne passed out of the Canadian's mind. After a few minutes' keen excitement, they landed the beautiful glistening trout; and then they set off down-stream in search of another, scrambling over rock and gravel and wading amidst the froth in the pools. Overhead, soft gray clouds drifted by, casting long shadows across fern-clad hillside and far-reaching moor; and the flood flashed into silver gleams and grew dim again. Both of the men were well content with their surroundings, and now and then Nasmyth wondered why Clarence could not be satisfied with the simple pleasures that were freely offered him. He could have had the esteem of his neighbors and the good will of his tenants, and there were healthful tasks that would have kept him occupied--the care of his estate, the improving of the homes and conditions of life of those who worked for him, experiments in stock-raising, local public duties. He had once slipped badly, so badly that the offense could hardly be contemplated; but that was when he was weak and famishing and under the influence of an overwhelming fear. At least, he could make some reparation by leaving the countryside better than he found it, and in this he had friends who would loyally assist him. Clarence, however, had chosen another way, one that led down-hill to further dishonor; and Nasmyth considered gloomily what the end of it all would be. Occasionally he glanced at the lithe figure of the Canadian, standing knee-deep amid the froth of the stream. Serious-eyed, alert, resolute, he could be depended on to carry out any purpose he had determined on; it was his firm hands that would hold Clarence's scourge. CHAPTER XII MRS. GLADWYNE'S APPEAL