“That's very kind of you,” said Dick. “But you're talking nonsense--worse than nonsense. Agnes has given her promise to marry my brother Claude. Let us say no more about it.” “It's all very well for you to say, 'We'll say no more about it,”' cried Cyril, with an air of responsibility--the responsibility of a brother who refuses to allow the affections of his sister to be trifled with. “It's all very well for you to say that; but when I think how long this sort of shilly-shallying has been going on--well, it makes me wild. Agnes is now over thirty--think of that--over thirty, and what's more, she's not getting any younger. I'm anxious to see her settled. I think I've a right to ask if she's engaged to marry Claude. Where's Claude now? Does any sane person believe that he is still in the land of the living?” “Your sister believes it, and she is sane enough. However, I'm not going to discuss the question with you, my friend; or, for that matter, with anybody else.” “That's all very well; the fact remains the same. Here's a fine house thrown away upon a bachelor, and there's Agnes, who would suit you down to the ground, waiting”-- “Waiting--waiting--that is exactly her position.” “Waiting--yes; but for what? For what, I ask you as a man of the world? Your brother is dead, beyond a shadow of a doubt, and here you are alive and hearty. Doesn't it say something in the Bible that when a chap's brother dies”-- “Cyril,” said Dick Westwood, rising with an impatient jesture, “we'll have no more of this. I won't allow you to talk any longer in this strain. Shall we finish our cigars in the garden?” “All right,” said Cyril, rising. But before they had taken a step toward the open French window, there seemed to arise from the earth the figure of a man, and he stood in the window space looking eagerly at each of them in turn. CHAPTER V. |The stranger stood with his back to whatever light there was remaining in the sky, but Dick Westwood and his guest could see what manner of man he was. He wore a short beard and moustache. His clothes were shabby, and so was his soft hat. He might have been a foreman of mechanics just left off work. Westwood stepped to the wall and switched on a lamp. Then he scrutinised the stranger closely. The man had entered the room through the French window. “Who are you, and what do you want, my good fellow?” said Westwood. “It is customary for visitors to pull the bell at the hall door.” “I pulled the bell. They told me you were at dinner and could not be disturbed, sir,” replied the man. No one who heard him speak could think of him as an ordinary mechanics' foreman. He spoke like a person of some culture.