You had, of course, suspected as much. You had known that all along. You know all about those silent woods and slaughtered men. You have been let in before, by better men. But it was curious, all the same.... “Is this where you said the house was, sir?” the sergeant’s voice came gently. We turned and looked at him. “Because,” he went on, “there’s been no house here for more than thirty year....” “Ah!” said Tarlyon; that was about as much as any one _could_ say. And our eyes wandered over the clearing, and we saw, bright against the mouldy stones of the ruin, two silk handkerchiefs.... Even the law was at last affected by the heat, for he raised his helmet and passed a hand over his almost bald head. “Yes,” said the sergeant of police. “There was a house here thirty year ago, but it was burnt down by the men of the neighbourhood because of a great crime that was done there. Parricide it was, but the boy was pardoned, being judged mad, and mad he must have been to kill the best and most God-fearing man in the county. Good-day, sirs. I’ll walk my way back. Yours was just an illusion, I make no doubt. The sun, maybe. But it’s always had a bad name, has Carmion.... Good-day, sirs.” And the sergeant of police went his way. “Did you see him, did you see his face?” I gasped frantically. For the face of the sergeant of police was the grown face of the lunatic boy we had trussed up an hour before with our two silk handkerchiefs, and they lying where we must have dropped them, drooping over the ruins.... “And he has learnt his lesson,” said Tarlyon, and his face was as still as the grey water of a rock-pool. “He has learnt his lesson, Ralph--and has taught me one. For the one sin that the old man said was unpardonable by all men is blasphemy....” VII: THE CAVALIER OF THE STREETS I It would not have occurred to you that Mrs. Avalon was a discontented woman. It would not even have occurred to you that she could be, for what had she not? She was, of course, the wife of John Avalon, K.C. But she was more than that, she was Fay Avalon. Now of the lovely, the gracious Fay Avalon, what shall be said that has not already been said? She was a figure of the world, and in it most centrally situated. She had not pushed, but she was _there_. More, she was a figure of legend, remote and courteous. Every one knew about her, but of nothing against her, and this was so because she was a lady who never by any means sought any publicity but that which the love and respect of her wide acquaintance spread for her. She was, in fact, a darling. It was the fashion to speak well of Fay Avalon, and it is only shallow people who say that all fashions are shallow because they change. There is nothing in the world that does not change, and if fashions change oftener than most that is because--well, it is difficult to say exactly why that is, and anyway that is not the place for it.