no reason why he should have abandoned his trip to
Australia and gone to Canada?"

"None!"

"His doing so is as inexplicable to you as to me?"

"Entirely."

"You have never doubted Lord Arranmore's story of his death?"

"Never. Why should I?"

"One more question," Brooks said. "Do you know that lately I have met a
traveller--a man who visited Lord Arranmore in Canada, and who declared
to his certain knowledge there was no other human dwelling-house within
fifty miles of Lord Arranmore's cabin?"

"He was obviously mistaken."

You think so?

"It is certain."

Brooks hesitated.

"My question," he said, "will have given you some idea of the
uncertainty I have felt once or twice lately, owing to the report of the
traveller Lacroix, and Lord Arranmore's unaccountable kindness to me.
You see, he isn't an ordinary man. He is not a philanthropist by any
means, nor in any way a person likely to do kindly actions from the love
of them. Now, do you know of any facts, or can you suggest anything
which might make the situation clearer to me?"

"I cannot, Mr. Brooks," the older man answered, without hesitation.
"If you take my advice, you will not trouble yourself any more with
fancies which seem to me--pardon me--quite chimerical. Accept Lord
Arranmore's kindness as the offshoot of some sentimental feeling which
he might well have entertained towards a fellow-countryman by whose
death-bed he had stood in that far-away, lonely country. You may even
yourself be mistaken in Lord Arranmore's character, and you can
remember, too, that after all what means so much to you costs him
nothing--is probably for his own advantage."

Brooks rose and took up his hat.

"I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Ascough," he said. "Yours, after
all, is the common-sense view of the affair. If you like I will walk up
to the station. I am going that way. . . ."

So Brooks, convinced of their folly, finally discarded certain
uncomfortable thoughts which once or twice lately had troubled him. He
dined at Enton that night, and improved his acquaintance with Lady
Caroom and her daughter, who were still staying there. Although this
was not a matter which he had mentioned to Mr. Ascough, there was
something which he found more inexplicable even than Lord Arranmore's
transference of the care of his estates to him, and that was the
apparent encouragement which both he and Lady Caroom gave to the
friendship between Sybil and himself. They had lunc