CHAPTER XLVI. THE DOCTOR'S NARRATIVE
Old Layton never questioned his son whither they were going, or for what, till the third day of their journeying together. Such, indeed, was the preoccupation of his mind, that he travelled along unmindful of new places and new people, all his thoughts deeply engaged by one single theme. Brief as this interval was, what a change had it worked in his appearance! Instead of the wild and haggard look his features used to wear, their expression was calm, somewhat stern, perhaps, and such as might have reminded one who had seen him in youth of the Herbert Layton of his college days. He had grown more silent, too, and there was in his manner the same trait of haughty reserve which once distinguished him. His habits of intemperance were abandoned at once, and without the slightest reference to motive or intention he gave his son to see that he had entered on a new course in life.
“Have you told me where we are going, Alfred, and have I forgotten it?” said he, on the third day of the journey.
“No, father; so many other things occurred to us to talk over that I never thought of this. It is time, however, I should tell you. We are going to meet one who would rather make your acquaintance than be the guest of a king.”
The old man smiled with a sort of cold incredulity, and his son went on to recount how, in collecting the stray papers and journals of the “Doctor,” as they styled him between them, this stranger had come to conceive the greatest admiration for his bold energy of temperament and the superior range of his intellect. The egotism, so long dormant in that degraded nature, revived and warmed up as the youth spoke, and he listened with proud delight at the story of all the American's devotion to him.
“He is a man of science, then, Alfred?”
“Nothing of the kind.”
“He is, at least, one of those quick-minded fellows who in this stirring country adapt to their purpose discoveries they have had no share in making; is he not?”
“Scarcely even that. He is a man of ordinary faculties, many prejudices, but of a manly honesty of heart I have never seen surpassed.”