Lady Angela had taken alarm. She hastened after him, dragging me
with her. Lord Cheisford was past middle age, but he was running along
the cliff path like a boy. We followed. Lady Angela would have passed
him, but I held her back. She did not speak a word. Some vague
prescience of the truth even then, I think, had dawned upon her.

We must have gone a mile before we came in sight of him. He was
strolling along, only dimly visible in the gathering twilight, still
apparently smoking, and with the air of a man taking a leisurely
promenade. He was toiling up the side of the highest cliff in the
neighbourhood, and once we saw him turn seaward and take off his hat as
though enjoying the breeze. Just as he neared the summit he looked
round. Lord Chelsford waved his hand and shouted.

"Rowchester," he cried. "Hi! Wait for me."

The Duke waved his hand as though in salute, and turned apparently with
the object of coming to meet us. But at that moment, without any
apparent cause, he lurched over towards the cliff side, and we saw him
fall. Lady Angela's cry of frenzied horror was the most awful thing I
had ever heard. Lord Chelsford took her into his arms.

"Climb down, Ducaine," he gasped. "I'm done!"

I found the Duke on the shingles, curiously unmangled. He had the
appearance of a man who had found death restful.

CHAPTER XL

THE THEORIES OF A NOVELIST

The novelist smiled. He had been buttonholed by a very great man, which
pleased him. He raised his voice a little. There were others standing
around. He fancied himself already the centre of the group. He forgot
the greatness of the great man.

"In common with many other people, my dear Marquis," he said, "you
labour under a great mistake. Human character is governed by as exact
laws as the physical world. Give me a man's characteristics, and I will
undertake to tell you exactly how he will act under any given
circumstances. It is a question of mathematics. We all carry with us,
inherited or acquired, a certain amount of resistance to evil influence,
certain predilections towards good and _vice versa_, according as we are
decent fellows or blackguards. Some natures are more complex than
others, of course--that only means that the weighing up of the good and
evil in them is a more difficult matter. There are experts who can tell
you the weight of a haystack by looking at it, and there are others who
are able at Christmas-time to indulge in an unquenchable thirst b