“Is it or isn’t it a wig?” Wolf caught himself wondering again. But each furtive glance he took at the raven-black cranium opposite him made such a supposition less and less credible; for by the flicker of the candles he seemed to detect the presence of actual individual hairs, coarsely and strongly growing, on either side of the “parting” in the centre of that massive skull. While he was considering this phenomenon, he became conscious that Mr. Urquhart had left the matter of Dorset Chronicles and was speaking of religion.

“I was brought up an Anglican and I shall die an Anglican,” he was saying. “That doesn’t in the least mean that I believe in the Christian religion.”

There was a pause at this point, while the squire refilled his own glass and that of his visitor.