yourpeople."
"Most men in the financial world do," said Gunn a little superciliously.
"Yes; but he asked me if you hadn't a relative of some kind in SouthernCalifornia or Mexico."
A slight flush--so slight that only the keen, vivaciously observant eyesof Marie noticed it--passed over the young man's face.
"I believe it is a known fact that our branch of the family neveremigrated from their native town," he said emphatically. "The Gunns wererather peculiar and particular in that respect."
"Then there were no offshoots from the old STOCK," said Gabriel.
Nevertheless, this pet joke of Gabriel's did not dissipate theconstraint and disappointment left upon the company by Uncle Sylvester'sunsatisfying performance and early withdrawal, and they separated soonafter, Kitty and Marie being glad to escape upstairs together. On thelanding they met two of the Irish housemaids in a state of agitatedexhaustion. It appeared that the "sthrange gintleman" had requested thathis bed be remade from bedclothes and bedding ALWAYS CARRIED WITH HIMIN HIS TRUNKS! From their apologetic tone it was evident that he hadliberally rewarded them. "Shure, Miss," protested Norah, in deprecationof Kitty's flashing eye, "there's thim that's lived among shnakes andpoysin riptiles and faverous disayses that's particklar av the bedsand sheets they lie on. Hisht! Howly Mother! it's something else he'swanting now!"
The door of Uncle Sylvester's room had slowly opened, and a bluepyjama'd sleeve appeared, carefully depositing the sheaf of bows andarrows outside the door. "I say, Norah, or Bridget there, some ofyou take those infernal things away. And look out, will you, for thearrowheads are deadly poison. The fool who got 'em didn't know they wereAfrican, and not Indian at all! And hold on!" The hand vanished, andpresently reappeared holding two rifles. "And take these away, too!They're loaded, capped, and NOT on the half-cock! A jar, a fall, theslightest shock is enough to send them off!"
"I'm dreadfully sorry that you should find it so uncomfortable in ourhouse, Uncle Sylvester," said Kitty, with a flushed cheek and vibratingvoice.
"Oh, it's you--is it?" said Uncle Sylvester's voice cheerfully."I thought it was Bridget out there. No, I don't intend to find ituncomfortable. That's why I'm putting these things outside. But, forHeaven's sake, don't YOU touch them. Leave that to the ineffable ass whoput them there. Good-night!"
The door closed; the whispering voices of the girls faded from thecorridor; the lights were lowered in the central hall, only the redCyclopean eye of an enormous columnar stove, like a lighthouse, gleamedthrough the darkness. Outside, the silent night sparkled, glistened, andfinally paled. Towards morning, having invested the sturdy wooden outerwalls of the house and filmed with delicate tracery every availableinch of window pane, it seemed stealthily to invade the house itself,stilling and chilling it as it drew closer around its central heartof warmth and life. Only once the frigid stillness was broken by theopening of a door and steps along the corridor. This was preceded by anacrid smell of burning bark.
It was subtle enough to permeate the upper floor and the bedroom ofMarie du Page, who was that night a light and nervous sleeper. Peeringfrom her door, she could see, on the lower corridor, the extraordinaryspectacle of Uncle Sylvester, robed in a gorgeous Japanese dressing-gownof quilted satin trimmed with the fur of the blue fox, candle in hand,leisurely examining the wall of the passage. Presently, drawing out afootrule from his pocket, he actually began to measure it! Miss DuPage saw no more. Hurriedly closing her door, she locked and bolted it,firmly convinced that Gabriel Lane was harboring in the guise of UncleSylvester a somnambulist, a maniac, or an impostor.
PART II.
"It doesn't seem as if Uncle Sylvester was any the more comfortablefor having his own private bedding with him," said Kitty Lane, enteringMarie's room early the next morning. "Bridget found him curled up in hisfurs like a cat asleep on the drawing-room sofa this morning."
Marie started; she remembered her last night's vision. But someinstinct--she knew not what--kept her from revealing it at this moment.She only said a little ironically:--
"Perhaps he missed the wild freedom of his barbaric life in a smallbedroom."
"No. Bridget says he said something about being smoked out of his roomby a ridiculous wood fire. The idea! As if a man brought up in the woodscouldn't stand a little smoke. No--that's his excuse! Marie!--do youknow what I firmly believe?"
"No," said Marie quickly.
"I firmly believe that poor man is ashamed of his past rough life,and does everything he can to forget it. That's why he affects thoseultra-civilized and effeminate ways, and goes to the other extreme, aspeople always do."
"Then you think he's really reformed, and isn't likely to take animpulse to rob and murder anybody again?"
"Why, Marie, what nonsense!"
Nevertheless, Uncle Sylvester appeared quite fresh and cheerful atbreakfast. It seemed that he had lit the fire before undressing, butthe green logs were piled so far into the room that the smoke nearlysuffocated him. Fearful of alarming the house by letting the smokeescape through the door, he opened the window, and when it had partlydispersed, sought refuge himself from the arctic air of his bedroomin the drawing-room. So far the act did not seem inconsistent with hissanity, or even intelligence and consideration for others. But Mariefixed upon him a pair of black, audacious eyes.
"Did you ever walk in your sleep, Mr. Lane?"
"No; but"--thoughtfully breaking an egg--"I have ridden, I think."
"In your sleep? Oh, do tell us all about it!" said Cousins Jane and Emmain chorus.
Uncle Sylvester cast a resigned glance out of the window. "Oh,yes--certainly; it isn't much. You see at one time I was in the habit ofmaking long monotonous journeys, and they were often exhausting, and,"he added, becoming wearied as if at the recollection, "always dreadfullytiresome. As the trail was sometimes very uncertain and dangerous, Irode a very surefooted mule that could go anywhere where there was spacebig enough to set her small hoofs upon. One night I was coming down theslope of a mountain towards a narrow valley and river that were crossedby an old, abandoned flume, of which nothing was now left but theupright trestle-work and long horizontal string-piece. As the trail wasvery difficult and the mule's pace was slow, I found myself dozing attimes, and at last I must have fallen asleep. I think I must have beenawakened by a singular regularity in the movement of the mule--or elseit was the monotony of step that had put me to sleep and the cessationof it awakened me. You see, at first I was not certain that I wasn'treally dreaming. For the trail seemed to have disappeared; the wall ofrock on one side had vanished also, and there appeared to be nothingahead of me but the opposite hillside."
Uncle Sylvester stopped to look out of the window at a passing carriage.Then he went on. "The moon came out, and I saw what had happened. Themule, either of her own free will, or obeying some movement I had giventhe reins in my sleep, had swerved from the trail, got on top ofthe flume, and was actually walking across the valley on the narrowstring-piece, a foot wide, half a mile long, and sixty feet from theground. I knew," he continued, examining his napkin thoughtfully, "thatshe was perfectly surefooted, and that if I kept quiet she could makethe passage, but I suddenly remembered that midway there was a break andgap of twenty feet in the continuous line, and that the string-piece wastoo narrow to allow her to turn round and retrace her steps."
"Good heavens!" said Cousin Jane.
"I beg your pardon?" said Uncle Sylvester politely.
"I only said, 'Good heavens!' Well?" she added impatiently.
"Well?" repeated Uncle Sylvester vaguely. "Oh, that's all. I only wantedto explain what I meant by saying I had ridden in my sleep."
"But," said Cousin Jane, leaning across the table with grimdeliberation and emphasizing each word with the handle of her knife,"how--did--you--and--that--mule get down?"
"Oh, with slings and ropes, you know--so," demonstrating by placing hisnapkin-ring in a sling made of his napkin.
"And I suppose you carried the slings and ropes with you in your fivetrun
ks!" gasped Cousin Jane.
"No. Fellows on the river brought 'em in the morning. Mighty spry chaps,those river miners."
"Very!" said Cousin Jane.
Breakfast over, they were not surprised that their sybaritic guestexcused himself from an inspection of the town in the frigid morningair, and declined joining a skating party to the lake on the ground thathe could keep warmer indoors with half the exertion. An hour later foundhim standing before the fire in Gabriel Lane's study, looking languidlydown on his elder brother.
"Then, as far as I