“I was and I wasn’t,” returned the surgeon.  “I’ve no time for morning calls, unless they are professional ones; but I wanted to say a word to you.  Have you a mind for a further walk in the snow?”

“As far as you like.”

“There’s a patient of mine drawing very near the time when doctors can do no more for him.  He has expressed a wish to see you, and I undertook to convey the request.”

“I’ll go, of course,” said Val, all his kindliness on the alert.  “Who is it?”

“A black sheep,” answered the surgeon.  “I don’t know whether that will make any difference?”

“It ought not,” said Val rather warmly.  “Black sheep have more need of help than white ones, when it comes to the last.  I suppose it’s a poacher wanting to clear his conscience.”

“It’s Pike,” said Hillary.

“Pike!  What can he want with me?  Is he no better?”

“He’ll never be better in this world; and to speak the truth, I think it’s time he left it.  He’ll be happier, poor fellow, let’s hope, in another than he has been in this.  Has it ever struck you, Lord Hartledon, that there was something strange about Pike, and his manner of coming here?”

“Very strange indeed.”

“Well, Pike is not Pike, but another man—­which I suppose you will say is Irish.  But that he is so ill, and it would not be worth while for the law to take him, he might be in mortal fear of your seeing him, lest you betrayed him.  He wanted you not to be informed until the last hour.  I told him there was no fear.”

“I would not betray any living man, whatever his crime, for the whole world,” returned Lord Hartledon; his voice so earnest as to amount to pain.  And the surgeon looked at him; but there rose up in his remembrance how he had been avoiding betrayal for years.  “Who is he?”

“Willy Gum.”

Lord Hartledon turned his head sharply under cover of the surgeon’s umbrella, for they were walking along together.  A thought crossed him that the words might be a jest.

“Yes, Pike is Willy Gum,” continued Mr. Hillary.  “And there you have the explanation of the poor mother’s nervous terrors.  I do pity her.  The clerk has taken it more philosophically, and seemed only to care lest the fact should become known.  Ah, poor thing! what a life hers has been!  Her fears of the wild neighbour, her basins for cats, are all explained now.  She dreaded lest Calne should suspect that she occasionally stole into the shed under cover of the night with the basins containing food for its inmate.  There the man has lived—­if you can call such an existence living; Willy Gum, concealed by his borrowed black hair and whiskers.  But that he was only a boy when he went away, Calne would have recognized him in spite of them.”

“And he is not a poacher and a snarer, and I don’t know what all, leading a lawless life, and thieving for his living?” exclaimed Lord Hartledon, the first question that rose to the surface, amidst the many that were struggling in his mind.