Norris was the first to leave. He bowed his awkward bow to the company generally, and shook hands with the Captain.
"Everything shall be settled in a week from now," he whispered with a meaning look. "Rely upon that. Good-night."
"Queer fish that," said young Sandys, as the door closed on Mr. Norris's lanky figure.
"Not quite the greenhorn he would have had us believe," remarked Gray, another of the guests. "Where the deuce did you pick him up, Lennox?"
"I'm glad he's gone," said Lennox, with an air of weariness, as he dropped into a chair "The fellow is after this place--if I should make up my mind to leave it."
"I say, old fellow, how jolly bad you look to-night!" said Downes Dyson as he proceeded to shuffle the cards.
"Yes, I'm altogether out of sorts. These horrible English winters are enough to kill anyone."
Captain Lennox was indeed glad that Mr. Norris had gone, and he would have been well pleased were he never going to see him again. He had contracted a great dislike for him, for which he could give no reasonable account to himself; a sort of dread which had grown deeper and deeper as the evening had advanced.
And he could not shake it off. His dreams that night were troubled ones: through the whole of them the tall, gaunt figure of Mr. Norris loomed ominously. Even in his sleep he felt that he hated him.
Next morning the Captain rose unrefreshed, and started by an early train for London. He was thinking that he needed a different air from the English air just as greatly as his sister did.
It was at the Rose and Crown that Mr. Conroy stayed when at Nullington. He and Norris had once or twice met on the stairs, and passed each other as strangers. On the evening above-mentioned, however, when Mr. Conroy was just about to go to rest, a tap came to the door of his sitting-room, and Norris appeared at it.
"I thought I'd just see whether you had retired yet, sir, having a word to say to you."
"Ah, is it you, Mr. Meath?" said Conroy. "Come in. You have some news for me, I presume. Sit down. What is it?"
"The news I have at present, sir, is this: that I have made some very curious discoveries indeed respecting the antecedents of the gentleman who goes by the name of Captain Lennox."