The stranger, during this stormy dialogue with Sir Thomas Gourlay,
turned his eye, from time to time, toward Fenton, who appeared to have
lost consciousness itself so long as the baronet was in the room. On the
departure, however, of that gentleman, he went over to him, and said:

"Why, Fenton, what's the matter?" Fenton looked at him with a face of
great distress, from which the perspiration was pouring, but seemed
utterly unable to speak.




CHAPTER VI. Extraordinary Scene between Fenton and the Stranger.

The character of Fenton was one that presented an extraordinary variety
of phases. With the exception of the firmness and pertinacity with which
he kept the mysterious secret of his origin and identity--that is, if
he himself knew them, he was never known to maintain the same moral
temperament for a week together. Never did there exist a being so
capricious and unstable. At one time, you found him all ingenuousness
and candor; at another, no earthly power could extort a syllable of
truth from his lips. For whole days, if not for weeks together, he
dealt in nothing but the wildest fiction, and the most extraordinary and
grotesque rodomontade. The consequence was, that no reliance could be
placed on anything he said or asserted. And yet--which appeared to
be rather unaccountable in such a character--it could be frequently
observed that he was subject to occasional periods of the deepest
dejection. During those painful and gloomy visitations, he avoided
all intercourse with his fellow-men, took to wandering through the
country--rarely spoke to anybody, whether stranger or acquaintance, but