early to desperation.
Yet I _have_ brought Sir Adrian back to Pulwick, in spite of all. Is
not that a feather in my cap?)

But to return; I next made Rene laugh aloud and Sir Adrian give his
indulgent smile--such as a father might give to his child--by adding
that when I was bored I would soon let them know. "I always do," I
said, "for I consider that a duty to myself."

"God knows," said this strange man then, half smiling, "I would we
could keep you here for ever."

It was almost a declaration, but his eyes were far off--it was not
addressed to me.

I soon found that the recollection of all the extraordinary incidents
Sir Adrian had lived through, is one neither of pride nor pleasure to
him, but, all the same, never has anything in books seemed to me so
stirring, as the tale of relentless fate, of ever-recurring battles
and struggles and misfortunes told by the man who, still in the
strength of life, has now chosen to forego everything that might for
the remainder of his days have compensated him.

Willing as he was to humour me, however, and disproportionately
anxious to amuse me, it was little more than the dry bones of his
history, I was able to obtain from him.

With Rene's help, however, and my own lively imagination I have been
able to piece together a very wonderful skeleton, from these same dry
bones, and, moreover, endow it with flesh and blood and life.

Rene was very willing to descant upon his master's exploits, as far as
he knew them: "Whew, Mademoiselle should have seen him fight!" he
would say, "a lion, Mademoiselle, a real lion!"

And then I would contrast the reposeful, somewhat immobile
countenance, the dreaming eye, the almost womanly softness of his
smile, with the picture, and find the contrast piquant in the extreme.

Concerning his present home Sir Adrian was more willing to speak--I
had told him how the light on the little island had fascinated me from
the distance, and all the surmises I had made about it.

"And so, it was in order to see what sort of dungeon they kept the
madman in," he said, laughing quietly, "that you pushed the
reconnaissance, which nearly sent you into the jaws of death!"

I was so struck, at first, by his speaking of himself as the reputed
"madman" that I could not answer. To think of him as serenely
contemptuous of the world's imputation--and an imputation so galling
as this one of being irresponsible for his actions--and deliberately
continuing his even w