“Good Lord!” said Wolf to himself, “I must be careful what I’m doing just here. The old demon has changed his tune. This isn’t garrulous history. This is special pleading.”

He took up his pen, erased the words “natural enough, therefore, for this corrupt rogue,” and wrote in their place, “natural enough, therefore, for this baffled idolater of innocence to become a misogynist and to turn⁠—” He stopped abruptly, pushed back his manuscript, and stared out of the window. He would have found it hard to explain this pause in his work, but a vague consciousness of the personality of young Redfern took possession of his mind.

“I’ve never seen a line of that fellow’s writing,” he thought. “I wonder what he would have made of this precious Sir Walter?”