“Eugene,” Mortimer apostrophized him, laughing quite heartily when they were alone again, “how can you be so ridiculous?”

“I am in a ridiculous humour,” quoth Eugene; “I am a ridiculous fellow. Everything is ridiculous. Come along!”

It passed into Mortimer Lightwood’s mind that a change of some sort, best expressed perhaps as an intensification of all that was wildest and most negligent and reckless in his friend, had come upon him in the last half-hour or so. Thoroughly used to him as he was, he found something new and strained in him that was for the moment perplexing. This passed into his mind, and passed out again; but he remembered it afterwards.

“There’s where she sits, you see,” said Eugene, when they were standing under the bank, roared and riven at by the wind. “There’s the light of her fire.”

“I’ll take a peep through the window,” said Mortimer.