Mark Wylder. He's not a man, I can tell you, wherever he is, to be
bullied, no more than I am. I don't correspond with him. I have nothing
to do with him or his affairs; I wash my hands of him.'

Captain Lake turned and walked quickly to the door, but came back as
suddenly.

'Shake hands, Sir. We'll forget it. I accept what you say; but don't talk
that way to me again. I can't imagine what the devil put such stuff in
your head. I don't care twopence. No one's to blame but Wylder himself. I
say I don't care a farthing. Upon my honour, I quite see--I now acquit
you. You could not mean what you seemed to say; and I can't understand
how a sensible man like you, knowing Mark Wylder, and knowing me, Sir,
could use such--such _ambiguous_ language. I have no more influence with
him, and can no more affect his doings, or what you call his _fate_--and,
to say the truth, care about them no more than the child unborn. He's his
own master, of course. What the devil can you have been dreaming of. I
don't even get a letter from him. He's _nothing_ to me.'

'You have misunderstood me; but that's over, Sir. I may have spoken with
warmth, fearing that you might be acting under some cruel
misapprehension--that's all; and you don't think worse of me, I'm very
sure, Captain Lake, for a little indiscreet zeal on behalf of a gentleman
who has treated me with such unlimited confidence as Mr. Wylder. I'd do
the same for you, Sir; it's my character.'

The two gentlemen, you perceive, though still agitated, were becoming
reasonable, and more or less complimentary and conciliatory; and the
masks which an electric gust had displaced for a moment, revealing gross
and somewhat repulsive features, were being readjusted, while each looked