room at the Three Fishers, and away
from an influence which seemed somehow horribly malign. The pitched
battle that had taken place between father and son--egged on by a
designing woman who did not mind to what depths she stooped so that her
ends were eventually reached, gave him an eery feeling. There was
something venomous about the whole affair, something that reminded him
of an asp about to strike. He could not shake that feeling from him. The
premonition held firm hold of his faculties.

A walk with Dollops over the moors certainly acted as a refresher, for
the lad's ready humour had the true Cockney bite in it and he had seen,
with his keen eyes, how the master he loved and reverenced was brooding
under the shadow of something he sensed although he could not see. And
so his comical faculties were put to good work. Until--tea-time at
length reached--Cleek returned to the Inn of the Three Fishers, a little
less clouded in heart and brain, and with some of the moody depression
shaken from him.

He spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening reading and
thinking by the open window of his room, looking out now and then at the
whole massive structure of Aygon Castle, with its great gateway, above
which Rhea du Macduggan stood everlasting guard. Gad! anything might
happen there--and the world be no wiser! It was an appalling thought at
best. What secrets had that place held in the past and never revealed to
the light of day? What secrets might it not hold in the future?

And those dungeons. The thing he had seen there.... And that
handkerchief--so obviously belonging to Ross Duggan, and which now lay
in his inner pocket. He fumbled for it and brought it out to the light,
examining it minutely. Fine linen, finely monogrammed. Very obviously
the handkerchief of an extravagant gentleman. But what on earth _he_
should be doing down there, amidst _that_, was something which sent the
grim lines fleeting about Cleek's mouth and eyes. It couldn't be he--the
son of a proud old house like this one! The thing seemed impossible. And
yet--there was the handkerchief to prove that fact; and then this
electricity business, which obviously ate up a good many private funds.
H'm. It would want close looking into, if nothing further proceeded with
Miss Duggan's part of the affair.

For an hour or two he sat pondering and dreaming there, the book he had
caught up absent-mindedly from the billiard-room book-case lying open in
his l