t willingly hearkened to.
There was too much of wars past and present, too many rumours of wars
future about it, for the ear of the recluse.

Late in the autumn of that red-letter year which brought a short
respite of peace to war-ridden Europe--a fine, but rather tumultuous
day round Scarthey--the light-keeper, having completed the morning's
menial task in the light-turret (during a temporary absence of his
factotum) sat, according to custom, at his long table, reading.

With head resting on his right hand whilst the left held a page ready
to turn, he solaced himself, pending the appearance of the mid-day
meal, with a few hundred lines of a favourite work--the didactic
poems, I believe, of a certain Doctor Erasmus Darwin, on the analogies
of the outer world.

There was quite as little of the ascetic in Adrian Landale's physical
man as of the hermitage in his chosen abode.

With the exception of the hair, which he wore long and free, and of
which the fair brown had begun to fade to silver-grey, the master of
Scarthey was still the living presentment of the portrait which, even
at that moment, presided among the assembly of canvas Landales in the
gallery of Pulwick Priory. Eight years had passed over the model since
the likeness had been fixed. But in their present repose, the features
clear cut and pronounced, the kindly thoughtful eyes looked, if
anything, younger than their counterfeit; indeed, almost
incongruously young under the flow of fading hair.

Clean shaven, with hands of refinement, still fastidious, his long
years of solitude notwithstanding, as to general neatness of attire,
he might at any moment of the day have walked up the great stair of
honour at Pulwick without by his appearance eliciting other remarks
than that his clothes, in cut and colour, belonged to fashions now
some years lapsed.

The high clock on the mantelshelf hummed and gurgled, and with much
deliberation struck one. Only an instant later, lagging footsteps
ascended the wooden, echoing stairs without, and the door was pushed
open by the attendant, an old dame. She was very dingy as to garb,
very wrinkled and feeble as to face, yet with a conscious achievement
of respectability, both in appearance and manner, befitting her post
as housekeeper to the "young master." The young master, be it stated
at once, was at that time fast approaching the end of his second score
years.

"Margery," said Adrian, rising to take the heavy tray from