"Now, tell me candidly," she said at length. "Is there not some
mystery about our new neighbour? Is he quite what he seems to be?"

"I fear he is not," said Mr. Blackthorne, making the admission in a
tone of reluctance, though, to tell the truth, he had been longing
to pass me on for the last five minutes.

"You mean that he is fast?"

"Worse than that," said James Blackthorne, lowering his voice as
they walked down one of the shady garden paths. "He is a dangerous,
unprincipled fellow, and into the bargain an avowed Nihilist. All
that is involved in that word you perhaps scarcely realise."

"Indeed I do," she exclaimed with a shocked expression. "I have
just been reading a review of that book by Stepniak. Their social
and religious views are terrible; free-love, atheism, everything
that could bring ruin on the human race. Is he indeed a Nihilist?"

Mr. Blackthorne's conscience gave him a sharp prick, for he knew
that he ought not to have passed me on. He tried to pacify it with
the excuse that he had only promised not to tell that Miss Houghton
had been his informant.

"I assure you," he said impressively, "it is only too true. I know
it on the best authority."

And here I cannot help remarking that it has always seemed to me
strange that even experienced women of the world, like Mrs. Milton-