"No," returned the lord, "I have not, but if all you say is true, I should like to visit that section very much." "True, Barncastle?" said Toppleton, bristling up. "Why, my dear lord, that if of yours would have dug your grave out near Pike's Peak." "I meant no offence, my dear fellow," returned Barncastle, apologetically. "No need to tell me that," said Toppleton, affably. "The fact that you still survive shows I knew it. What time is dinner? I'm ravenous." "Eight o'clock," replied Lord Barncastle, looking at his watch. "It is now only three." "Phew!" ejaculated Toppleton. "Five hours to wait!" "I thought we might take a little drive around the country until six, and then we could return to the Hall and make ready for dinner," said Barncastle. "That suits me," returned Toppleton. "But I wish you'd send that gentleman with the mutton-chop whiskers that drives your waggon to the lunch counter and get me a snack before we start." "No," said Barncastle, ushering Toppleton into his dog-cart. "We'll do better than that. We'll give up the drive until later. I take you directly to the Hall, and send a cold bird and a glass of wine to your apartment." "Good!" ejaculated Toppleton, with a smack of the lips. "You must live pretty near as fine here as we do in our big hotels at home. They're the only other places I know where you can get your appetite satisfied at five minutes' notice." Toppleton and his host then entered the carriage, and in a short time they reached the Hall--a magnificently substantial structure, with ivy-clad towers, great gables, large arched windows looking out upon seductive vistas, and an air of comfortable antiquity about it that moved Hopkins' tongue to an utterance somewhat at variance with his assumed character. "How beautiful and quiet it all is," he said, gazing about him in undisguised admiration. "A home like this, my lord, ought to make a poet of a man. The very air is an inspiration." Barncastle shrugged his shoulders and laughed; and had Toppleton not been looking in rapt silence out through the large bowed window at the end of the hall they had entered, along an avenue of substantial oak trees to the silver waters of the Barbundle at its other end, he might have seen a strange greenish light come into the eyes of his host, which would have worried him not a little. He did not see it, however, and in a moment he remembered his mission and the means he had adopted to bring it to a successful issue. "It beats the deck!" he ejaculated, with a nervous glance at Barncastle, fearful lest his enthusiasm had led him to betray himself.