"But you have some papers?"

"They existed once: perhaps are still recoverable by search," said the
schoolmaster. "My father knew of them."

"A foolish legend," reiterated the Doctor. "It is strange how human
folly strings itself on to human folly, as a story originally false and
foolish grows older"

He got up and walked about the room, with hasty and irregular strides
and a prodigious swinging of his ragged dressing-gown, which swept away
as many cobwebs as it would take a week to reproduce. After a few
turns, as if to change the subject, the Doctor asked the schoolmaster
if he had any taste for pictures, and drew his attention to the
portrait which has been already mentioned,--the figure in antique
sordid garb, with a halter round his neck, and the expression in his
face which the Doctor and the two children had interpreted so
differently. Colcord, who probably knew nothing about pictures, looked
at it at first merely from the gentle and cool complaisance of his
character; but becoming absorbed in the contemplation, stood long
without speaking; until the Doctor, looking in his face, perceived his
eyes were streaming with tears.

"What are you crying about?" said he, gruffly.

"I don't know," said the schoolmaster quietly. "But there is something
in this picture that affects me inexpressibly; so that, not being a man
passionate by nature, I have hardly ever been so moved as now!"

"Very foolish," muttered the Doctor, resuming his strides about the