Luke hesitated and pondered, the tall dark tower of St. Catharine’s Church affording him but scant inspiration, as it rose above them into the starlit sky. Should he tell him or should he keep the matter to himself, and enter into some new pretended scheme with his brother, to occupy his mind and distract it, for the time being? So long did he remain silent, pondering this question, that James, observing his absorbed state and concluding that his subtle intelligence was occupied in devising some way out of their imbroglio, gave up all thought of receiving an answer, and moving to a less dew-drenched resting-place, leaned his head against an upright monument and closed his eyes. The feeling that his admired brother was taking Lacrima’s plight so seriously in hand filled him with a reassuring calm, and he had not long remained in his new position before his exhausted senses found relief in sleep. Left to himself, Luke weighed in his mind every conceivable aspect of the question at stake. Less grave and assured than the metaphysical Mr. Taxater in this matter of striking at evil persons with evil weapons, Luke was not a whit less unscrupulous. No Quincunx-like visitings of compunction had followed, with him, their rescue of Ninsy. If the scene at Seven Ashes had printed any impression at all upon his volatile mind, it was merely a vague and agreeable sense of how beautiful the girl’s dead-white skin had looked, contrasted with the disturbed masses of her dusky hair. Beyond this, except for a pleasant memory of how lightly and softly she had lain upon his arm, as he helped to carry her across the Wild Pine barton, the occurrence had left him unaffected. His conscience did not trouble him in the smallest degree with regard to Gladys. According to Luke’s philosophy of life, things in this world resolved themselves into a reckless hand-to-hand struggle between opposing personalities, every one of them seeking, with all the faculties at his disposal, to get the better of the others. It was absurd to stop and consider such illusive impediments as sentiment or honour, when the great, casual, indifferent universe which surrounds us knows nothing of these things! Out of the depths of this chaotic universe he, Luke Andersen, had been flung. It must be his first concern to sweep aside, as irrelevant and meaningless, any mere human fancies, ill-based and adventitious, upon which his free foot might stumble. To strike craftily and boldly in defence of the person he loved best in the world seemed to him not only natural but commendable. How should he be content to indulge in vague sentimental shilly-shallying, when the whole happiness of his beloved Daddy James was at stake?