yself, partly
from the peculiarity of my constitution, partly from the state of my
health, partly from the fact that my views do not coincide with those
of the church of Scotland, and there is no episcopal clergyman within
reach of the castle--I find myself, I say, for these reasons, desirous
of some conversation with you, more for the sake of identifying my own
opinions, than in the hope of receiving from you what it would be
unreasonable to expect from one of your years."

Donal held his peace; the very power of speech seemed taken from him:
he had no confidence in the man, and nothing so quenches speech as lack
of faith. But the earl had no idea of this distrust, never a doubt of
his listener's readiness to take any position he required him to take.
Experience had taught him as little about Donal as about his own real
self.

"I have long been troubled," continued his lordship after a momentary
pause, "with a question of which one might think the world must by this
time be weary--which yet has, and always will have, extraordinary
fascination for minds of a certain sort--of which my own is one: it is
the question of the freedom of the will:--how far is the will free? or
how far can it be called free, consistently with the notion of a God
over all?"

He paused, and Donal sat silent--so long that his lordship opened the
eyes which, the better to enjoy the process of sentence-making, he had
kept shut, and half turned his head towards him: he had begun to doubt
whether he was really by his bedside, or but one of his many visions
undistinguishable by him from realities. Re-assured by the glance, he
resumed.

"I cannot, of course, expect from you such an exhaustive and formed
opinion as from an older man who had made metaphysics his business, and
acquainted himself with all that had been said upon the subject; at the
same time you must have expended a considerable amount of thought on
these matters!"

He talked in a quiet, level manner, almost without inflection, and with
his eyes again closed--very much as if he were reading a book inside
him.

"I have had a good deal," he went on, "to shake my belief in the common
ideas on such points.--Do you believe there is such a thing as free
will?"

He ceased, awaiting the answer which Donal felt far from prepared to
give him.

"My lord," he said at length, "what I believe, I do not feel capable,
at a moment's notice, of setting forth; neither do I think, however
unavoid