Unceremoniously he filled himself another brimmer, and reflecting a moment— “Now to my Lady Lochore!” said he at length slowly, “and to the wish of her heart!” Doctor Tutterville looked at him askance. Then, after a moment, he too rose, and with an old-fashioned bow all round, left the room. CHAPTER VI THE LUST OF RENUNCIATION O purblind race of miserable men, How many among us at this very hour Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves By taking true for false or false for true! —TENNYSON (_Geraint and Enid_). Ellinor went straight from the dining-room to seek her father in his peaceful retreat. Courage failed her to face the company any longer that night; she had, moreover, a longing to be with one who at least would not misunderstand her. But, on the very threshold, her heart sank. It hardly needed Barnaby’s warning clutch at her gown from where he sat like a statue of watchfulness, just inside the door, his shake of the head and mysterious finger on lip to show her that her coming was inopportune. The very atmosphere of the room forbade interruption. The air seemed full of floating thoughts, of whispering voices and stealthy vapours; of these singular aromas that to her were like the letters of a strange language which she had hardly yet learned to spell. Up to the vaulted roof the whole space was humming with mysterious activity; a thousand energies were in being around some secret work. And there, master-brain and centre power, her father, seated at his table, like a mimic creator evolving a world of his own out of the forces of his chaos! She came forward a step or two. His underlip was moving rapidly; and broken, unintelligible words dropped from time to time among the whispering vapour-voices all about him, like stones into a singing fountain. Now he lifted his blue eyes, stared straight at her—and saw her not! Once or twice before she had known him in this state of mental isolation; she was aware that his brain was wound up to an extraordinary pitch, and that to interfere with its operations or endeavour now to bring its thoughts into another current would be at once useless to herself and cruel to him. Alas! He had been at his mysterious drugs again—those unknown powers that were beginning to fill her with secret terrors. She had more than once implored him to deal no more with them; but she might as well have implored a Napoleon to desist from planning conquest as the old chemist from experimenting upon himself or others. She turned, and looked questioningly at Barnaby, who, by some strange dog-like intuition, never failed to remain within sight of his master at such moments. And the lad’s expressive pantomime convinced her that her surmises were right. With a new anxiety added to her burden, she withdrew.