'If you had asked your questions of a grown-up person--of me or any of
these gentlemen--you'd have had some satisfaction, and wouldn't have
wasted breath. Miss Haredale is Mr Geoffrey Haredale's niece.'

'Is her father alive?' said the man, carelessly.

'No,' rejoined the landlord, 'he is not alive, and he is not dead--'

'Not dead!' cried the other.

'Not dead in a common sort of way,' said the landlord.

The cronies nodded to each other, and Mr Parkes remarked in an
undertone, shaking his head meanwhile as who should say, 'let no man
contradict me, for I won't believe him,' that John Willet was in amazing
force to-night, and fit to tackle a Chief Justice.

The stranger suffered a short pause to elapse, and then asked abruptly,
'What do you mean?'

'More than you think for, friend,' returned John Willet. 'Perhaps
there's more meaning in them words than you suspect.'

'Perhaps there is,' said the strange man, gruffly; 'but what the devil
do you speak in such mysteries for? You tell me, first, that a man is
not alive, nor yet dead--then, that he's not dead in a common sort of
way--then, that you mean a great deal more than I think for. To tell
you the truth, you may do that easily; for so far as I can make out, you
mean nothing. What DO you mean, I ask again?'