warming his blood, he became aware of the great difference between his
battered appearance and that of the old gentleman with the rich dress
and the white linen who stooped so hospitably above him, and he began to
wonder at the readiness of the hospitality. Wogan might have been a
thief, a murderer, for all Count Otto knew. Yet the Count, with no other
protection than his dog, had opened his window, and at that late hour of
the night had welcomed him without a word of a question.

"Sir," said Wogan, "my visit is the most unceremonious thing in the
world. I plump in upon you in the dark of the morning, as I take it to
be, and disturb you at your books without so much as knocking at the
door."

"It is as well you did not knock at the door," returned the Count, "for
my servants are long since in bed, and your knock would very likely have
reached neither their ears nor mine." And he drew up a chair and sat
down opposite to Wogan, bending forward with his hands upon his knees.
The firelight played upon his pale, indoor face, and it seemed to Wogan
that he regarded his guest with a certain wistfulness. Wogan spoke his
thought aloud,--

"Yet I might be any hedgerow rascal with a taste for your plate, and no
particular scruples as to a life or two lying in the way of its
gratification."

The Count smiled.

"Your visit is not so unexampled as you are inclined to think. Nearly
thirty years ago a young man as you are came in just such a plight as
you and stood outside this window at two o'clock of a dark morning. Even