yet they've been up these three hours! And they'll suck in bad air,
and bad food; and they'll get cancer, and all that; and they'll die and
be trotted away to the graveyard for 'passun' to hurry them into their
little dark cots, in the blessed hope of everlasting life! I'm going to
know this thing, Brillon, from tooth to ham-string; and, however it goes,
we'll have lived up and down the whole scale; and that's something."

He suddenly stopped, and then added:

"I'm likely to go pretty far in this. I can't tell how or why, but it's
so. Now, once more, as yesterday afternoon, for good or for bad, for
long or for short, for the gods or for the devil, are you with me?
There's time to turn back even yet, and I'll say no word to your going."

"But no, no! a vow is a vow. When I cannot run I will walk, when I
cannot walk I will crawl after you--comme ca!"

Lady Belward did not appear at breakfast. Sir William and Gaston
breakfasted alone at half past nine o'clock. The talk was of the
stables and the estate generally.

The breakfast-room looked out on a soft lawn, stretching away into a
broad park, through which a stream ran; and beyond was a green hillside.
The quiet, the perfect order and discipline, gave a pleasant tingle to
Gaston's veins. It was all so easy, and yet so admirable--elegance
without weight. He felt at home. He was not certain of some trifles
of etiquette; but he and Sir William were alone, and he followed his
instincts. Once he frankly asked his grandfather of a matter of form,
of which he was uncertain the evening before. The thing was done so
naturally that the conventional mind of the baronet was not disturbed.