"Did you see your cousin, Mr. Castaigne, there?" she asked, with the
slightest tremor of her soft eyelashes.

"No," I replied carelessly. "Louis' regiment is manoeuvring out in
Westchester County." I rose and picked up my hat and cane.

"Are you going upstairs to see the lunatic again?" laughed old Hawberk.
If Hawberk knew how I loathe that word "lunatic," he would never use it
in my presence. It rouses certain feelings within me which I do not care
to explain. However, I answered him quietly: "I think I shall drop in and
see Mr. Wilde for a moment or two."

"Poor fellow," said Constance, with a shake of the head, "it must be hard
to live alone year after year poor, crippled and almost demented. It is
very good of you, Mr. Castaigne, to visit him as often as you do."

"I think he is vicious," observed Hawberk, beginning again with his
hammer. I listened to the golden tinkle on the greave plates; when he had
finished I replied:

"No, he is not vicious, nor is he in the least demented. His mind is a
wonder chamber, from which he can extract treasures that you and I would
give years of our life to acquire."'

Hawberk laughed.

I continued a little impatiently: "He knows history as no one else could
know it. Nothing, however trivial, escapes his search, and his memory is
so absolute, so precise in details, that were it known in New York that