dent that some hidden sense
of wrong had sprung suddenly to the light, and perhaps amazed him by its
strength, for he began immediately to explain away his answer. "Hum! not
that exactly. But not a friend."

"And you want to do him an injury!" said Mackay, with grave
consideration.

"No, I don't," said Percival, angrily, as if replying to a suggestion
that had been made a thousand times before, and flinging out his arm
with a reckless, agitated gesture. "I want to do him a service--confound
him!"

There was a silence. Percival lay with his outstretched hand clenched
and his eyes fixed gloomily on the opposite wall: Mackay turned away his
head. Presently, however, he spoke in a low but distinct tone.

"What is the service you propose doing me, Mr. Heron?"

"Doing you? Good Heavens! You! What do you mean?"

"I suppose that my face is a good deal disfigured at present," said the
steerage passenger, passing his hand lightly over his thick, brown
beard; "but when it is better, you will probably recognise me easily
enough. But, perhaps, I am mistaken. I thought for a moment that you
were in search of a man called Stretton, who was formerly a tutor to
your step-brothers."

Percival was standing erect by this time in the middle of the floor. His
hands were thrust into his pockets: his deep chest heaved: the bronzed
pallor of his face had turned to a dusky red. He did not answer the
words spoken to him; but after a few seconds of silence, in which the
eyes of the two men met and told each other a good deal, he strode to
the doorway, pushed aside the plank which served for a door, and went
out into the storm. He did not feel the rain beating upon his head: he
did not hear the thunder, nor see the forked lightning that played
without intermission in the darkened sky; he was conscious only of the
intolerable fact that he was shut up in a narrow corner of the earth, in
daily, almost hourly, companionship with the one man for whom he felt
something not unlike fierce hatred. And in spite of his resolution to
act generously for Elizabeth's sake, the hatred flamed up again when he
found himself so suddenly thrust, as it were, into Brian Luttrell's
presence.

When he had walked for some time and got thoroughly wet through, it
occurred to him that he was acting more like a child than a grown man;
and he turned his face as impetuously towards the huts as he had lately
turned his back upon them. He found plenty to do when the rain