with a mind astray; and yet there were indications in his speech and
manner that told of reason struggling against madness, like the light
behind storm-clouds. He had tones that spoke of a keen sensitiveness to
pain, not the lunatic's imbecile placidity. She observed him intently,
trying to make out what manner of man he was.

He did not belong to the peasant class: of that she felt assured. The
shrunken, tapering hand had never worked at peasant's work. The profile
turned towards her was delicate to effeminacy. The man's clothes were
shabby and old-fashioned, but they were a gentleman's garments, the
cloth of a finer texture than she had ever seen worn by her brother. The
coat, with its velvet collar, was of an old-world fashion. She
remembered having seen just such a coat in an engraved portrait of Count
d'Orsay, a print nearly fifty years old. No Dalesman born and bred ever
wore such a coat; no tailor in the Dales could have made it.

The old man looked up after a long pause, during which Mary felt afraid
to move. He looked at her again with inquiring eyes, as if her presence
there had only just become known to him.

'Who are you?' he asked again.

'I told you my name just now. I am Mary Haselden.'

'Haselden--that is a name I knew--once. Mary? I think my mother's name
was Mary. Yes, yes, I remember that. You have a sweet face, Mary--like
my mother's. She had brown eyes, like yours, and auburn hair. You don't
recollect her, perhaps?'

'Alas! poor maniac,' thought Mary, 'you have lost all count of time.