'Nothing. You had one hand on your forehead and the other on your
knee. I do hope you are not ill, sir, or in deep trouble?' Margery
had sufficient tact to say nothing about the pistol.

'What difference would it make to you if I were ill or in trouble?
You don't know me.'

She returned no answer, feeling that she might have taken a liberty
in expressing sympathy. But, looking furtively up at him, she
discerned to her surprise that he seemed affected by her humane wish,
simply as it had been expressed. She had scarcely conceived that
such a tall dark man could know what gentle feelings were.

'Well, I am much obliged to you for caring how I am,' said he with a
faint smile and an affected lightness of manner which, even to her,
only rendered more apparent the gloom beneath. 'I have not slept
this past night. I suffer from sleeplessness. Probably you do not.'

Margery laughed a little, and he glanced with interest at the comely
picture she presented; her fresh face, brown hair, candid eyes,
unpractised manner, country dress, pink hands, empty wicker-basket,
and the handkerchief over her bonnet.

'Well,' he said, after his scrutiny, 'I need hardly have asked such a
question of one who is Nature's own image . . . Ah, but my good
little friend,' he added, recurring to his bitter tone and sitting
wearily down, 'you don't know what great clouds can hang over some
people's lives, and what cowards some men are in face of them. To
escape themselves they travel, take picturesque houses, and engage in
country sports. But here it is so dreary, and the fog was horrible