Mr. Archibald Touris put out a wrinkled hand to his wine-glass.  “You have been in warm countries.  I envy you!  I wish that I could get warm.”

“Black Hill is looking finely.  All the young trees—­”

“Yes.  I took pride in planting.—­But what for—­what for—­what for?” He shivered.  “Glenfernie, please close that window!”

Alexander, coming back, stood above the master of Black Hill.  “Will you tell me, sir, where Ian is now?”

Mr. Touris twitched back a little in his chair.  “Don’t you know?  I thought perhaps that you did.”

“I ceased to follow him two years ago.  I dived into the East, and I have been long where you do not hear from the West.”

The other fingered his wine-glass.  “Well, I haven’t heard myself, for quite a while....  You would think that he might come back to England now.  But he can’t.  Doubtless he would never wish to come again to Black Hill.  But England, now....  But they are ferocious yet against every head great and small of the attempt.  And I am told there are aggravating circumstances.  He had worn the King’s coat.  He was among the plotters and instigators.  He broke prison.  Impossible to show mercy!” Mr. Touris twitched again.  “That’s a phrase like a gravestone!  If the Almighty uses it, then of course he can’t be Almighty....  Well, the moral is that none named Ian Rullock can come again to Scotland or England.”

“Have you knowledge that he wishes to do so?”

Mr. Touris moved again.  “I don’t know....  I told you that we hadn’t heard.  But—­”

He stopped and sat staring into his wine-glass.  Alexander read on as by starlight:  “But I did hear—­through old channels.  And there is danger of his trying to return.”

The master of Black Hill put the wine to his lips.  “And so you have been everywhere?”

“No.  But in places where I had not been before.”

“The East India has ways of gathering information.  Through Goodworth I can get at a good deal when I want to....  There is Wotherspoon, also.  I am practically certain that Ian is in France.”

“When did he write?”

“Alison has a letter maybe twice a year.  One’s overdue now.”

“How does he write?”

“They are very short.  He doesn’t touch on old things—­except, perhaps, back into boyhood.  She likes to get them.  When you see her, don’t speak of anything save his staying in France, as he ought to.”  He dragged toward him a jar of snuff.  “There are informers and seekers out everywhere.  Do you remember a man in Edinburgh named Gleig?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he’s one of them.  And for some reason he has a personal enmity toward Ian.  So, you see—­”

He lapsed into silence, a small, aging, chilly, wrinkled, troubled man.  Then with suddenness a wintry red crept into his cheek, a brightness into his eyes.  “You’ve changed so, Glenfernie, you’ve cheated me!  You are his foe yourself.  Perhaps even—­”