"To keep myself during my next incarnation."
The artist was becoming quite bewildered at hearing this farrago of nonsense uttered in such a serious tone. However the conversation was so extraordinary that he could not forbear humouring the madman.
"A very laudable intention," he said, quietly, "but as you will be someone else in your next incarnation, how are you going to claim Squire Garsworth's money?"
"Ah!" responded the squire, with a cunning smile, "that is my secret; I have arranged all that in a most admirable way. I can claim my own money without any trouble."
"I will not be born a savage--that would be retrogression, and spirits never retrograde."
"Well," said Beaumont, rising to his feet, and putting his brushes away, "your conversation is getting too deep for me, Mr. Garsworth. I understand your metempsychosis theory all right, though I don't agree with it; but I fail to see how you are going to arrange about getting your own money."
"No, no!" replied Garsworth, raising his form, tall and gaunt, against the bright light outside, "of course not; that is my secret. No one will know--not one! Is your sitting finished?"
"Come to-morrow--come to-morrow!" said the old man, coming round to look at the picture, "no time to be lost, I may die before it's done, and then I won't be able to see myself as I was: but Nestley will keep me alive--good doctor--very good doctor--paid him handsomely--yes, handsomely! Good-bye for to-day, Mr. Beaumont. Don't forget to-morrow; I may die--no time to lose--good-bye!"
The old man shuffled tremulously out of the room, and Beaumont stood looking after him with a puzzled smile on his lips. He began to put his paraphernalia away slowly and talked softly to himself meanwhile.
"I wonder if there's any sense in the old fool's ravings--I don't believe in this incarnation rubbish--but he's got some scheme in his head about that money--I'd like to find it out--there might be something in it by which I could benefit--he's a madman sure enough but still there is method in his madness--however, I'll try to discover his secret somehow."
He lighted a cigarette and sauntered out on to the terrace, thinking over the chances of finding out the Squire's secret with a view to turning it to his own account. Apparently his cogitations led to some result, for after standing for a few minutes at the end of the terrace in a brown study, he removed his cigarette from his mouth and uttered one word: