"Most likely a false one. You know what
Rumour is, Mr. Sampson. I never repeat what
I hear; it is the only way of paring the nails
and shaving the head of Rumour. But, when
you ask me what reason I have heard assigned
for Mr. Meltham's passing away from among
men, it is another thing. I am not gratifying
idle gossip then. I was told, Mr. Sampson, that
Mr. Meltham had relinquished all his avocations
and all his prospects, Because he was, in fact,
broken-hearted. A disappointed attachment, I
heard— though it hardly seems probable, in the
case of a man so distinguished and so attractive."

"Attractions and distinctions are no armour
against death," said I.

"Oh! She died? Pray, pardon me. I did
not hear that. That, indeed, makes it very very
sad. Poor Mr. Meltham! She died? Ah, dear
me! Lamentable, lamentable!"

I still thought his pity not quite genuine, and
I still suspected an unaccountable sneer under
all this, until he said, as we were parted, like
the other knots of talkers, by the announcement
of dinner:

"Mr. Sampson, you are surprised to see me
so moved, on behalf of a man whom I have
never known. I am not so disinterested as you
may suppose. I myself have suffered, and recently
too, from death. I have lost one of two
charming nieces, who were my constant companions.
She died young— barely three-and-twenty
— and even her remaining sister is far
from strong. The world is a grave!"

He said this with deep feeling, and I felt reproached
for the coldness of my manner. Coldness
and distrust had been engendered in me, I
knew, by my bad experiences; they were not
natural to me; and I often thought how much
I had lost in life, losing trustfulness, and how
little I had gained, gaining hard caution. This
state of mind being habitual to me, I troubled
myself more about this conversation than I might
have troubled myself about a greater matter. I
listened to his talk at dinner, and observed how
readily other men responded to it, and with what
a graceful instinct he adapted his subjects to
the knowledge and habits of those he talked
with. As, in talking with me, he had easily
started the subject I might be supposed to
understand best, and to be, the most interested in,
so, in talking with others, he guided himself by
the same rule. The company was of a varied
character; but, he was not at fault, that I could
discover, with any member of it. He knew
just as much of each man's pursuit as made him
agreeable to that man in reference to it, and
just as little as made it natural in him to seek
modestly for information when the theme was
broached.

As he talked and talked— but really not too
much, for the rest of us seemed to force it upon
him— I became quite angry with myself. I took
his face to pieces in my mind, like a watch, and
examined it in detail. I could not say much
against any of his features separately; I could
say even less against them when they were put
together. " Then is it not monstrous," I asked
myself, " that because a man happens to part
his hair straight up the middle of his head, I
should permit myself to suspect, and even to
detest, him?"

(I may stop to remark that this was no proof of
my good sense. An observer of men who finds
himself steadily repelled by some apparently
trilling thing in a stranger, is right to give it
weight. It may be the clue to the whole
mystery. A hair or two will show where a lion
is hidden. A very little key will open a very
heavy door.)

I took my part in the conversation with him
after a time, and we got on remarkably well. In
the drawing-room, I asked the host how long he
had known Mr. Slinkton? He answered, not
many months; he had met him at the house of
a celebrated painter then present, who had
known him well when he was travelling with
his nieces in Italy for their health. His plans
in life being broken by the death of one of them,
he was reading, with the intention of going back
to college as a matter of form, taking his degree,
and going into orders. I could not but argue
with myself that here was the true explanation
of his interest in poor Meltham, and that I had
been almost brutal in my distrust on that simple
head.

III.

ON the very next day but one, I was sitting
behind my glass partition as before, when he
came into the outer office as before. The moment
I saw him again without hearing him, I
hated him worse than ever.

It was only for a moment that he gave me this
opportunity; for, he waved his tight-fitting black
glove the instant I looked at him, and came
straight in.

"Mr. Sampson, good day! I presume, you
see, upon your kind permission to intrude upon,
you. I don't keep my word in being justified
by business, for my business here— if I
may so abuse the word— is of the slightest
nature."

I asked, was it anything I could assist him in?

"I thank you, no. I merely called to inquire
outside, whether my dilatory friend has been so
false to himself, as to be practical and sensible.
But, of course, he has done nothing. I gave
him your papers with my own hand, and he was
hot upon the intention, but of course he has
done nothing. Apart from the general human
disinclination to do anything that ought to be
done, I dare say there is a speciality about assuring
one's life? You find it like will-making?
People are so superstitious, and take it for
granted they will die soon afterwards?"

— Up here, if you please. Straight up here, Mr.
Sampson. Neither to the right nor to the left!
I almost fancied I could hear him breathe the
words, as he sat smiling at me, with that intolerable
parting exactly opposite the bridge of
my nose.

"There is such a feeling sometimes, no doubt,"
I replied; "but I don't think it obtains to any
great extent."