“I went to the churchyard--to our old place--you know,” went on his brother. “I stayed nearly an hour there--or was it more? Perhaps it was more. I stayed so long, anyway, that I nearly went to sleep. I think I must have gone to sleep!” he added, after a moment’s pause. “I expect you were tired,” remarked Luke rather weakly, feeling for some reason or other, a strange sense of disquietude. “Tired?” exclaimed the recumbent man, “why should I be tired?” He raised himself up with a jerk, and finishing his glass, set it down with meticulous care upon the ground beside him. Luke noticed, with an uncomfortable sense of something not quite usual in his manner, that every movement he made and every word he spoke seemed the result of a laborious and conscious effort--like the effort of one in incomplete control of his sensory nerves. “What shall we do now?” said Luke with an air of ease and indifference. “Do you feel like strolling back to Nevilton, or shall we make a day of it and go on to Roger-Town Ferry and have dinner there?” James gave vent to a curiously unpleasant laugh. “You go, my dear,” he said, “and leave me where I am.” Luke began to feel thoroughly uncomfortable. He once more laid his hand caressingly on his brother’s knee. “You have really forgiven me?” he pleaded. “Really and truly?” James Andersen had again sunk back into a semi-comatose state in his corner. “Forgive?” he muttered, as though he found difficulty in understanding the meaning of the word, “forgive? I tell you it’s nothing.” He was silent, and then, in a still more drowsy murmur, he uttered the word “Nothing” three or four times. Soon after this he closed his eyes and relapsed into a deep slumber. “Better leave ’un as ’un be,” remarked the landlord to Luke. “I’ve had my eye on ’un for this last ’arf hour. ’A do seem mazed-like, looks so. Let ’un bide where ’un be, master. These be wonderful rumbly days for a man’s head. ’Taint what ’ee’s ’ad, you understand; to my thinking, ’tis these thunder-shocks wot ’ave worrited ’im.” Luke nodded at the man, and standing up surveyed his brother gravely. It certainly looked as if James was settled in his corner for the rest of the morning. Luke wondered if it would be best to let him remain where he was, and sleep off his coma, or to rouse him and try and persuade him to return home. He decided to take the landlord’s advice. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll just leave him for a while to recover himself. You’ll keep an eye to him, won’t you, Mr. Titley? I’ll just wander round a bit, and come back. May-be if he doesn’t want to go home to dinner, we’ll have a bite of something here with you.” Mr. Titley promised not to let his guest out of his sight. “I know what these thunder-shocks be,” he said. “Don’t you worry, mister. You’ll find ’un wonderful reasonable along of an hour or so. ’Tis the weather wot ’ave him floored ’im. The liquor ’ee’s put down wouldn’t hurt a cat.”