"Not exactly. You go as a dignified soldier of her Majesty's; I as an undignified Abel Drugger, to dose Bashi-bazouks."
"Impossible! and with such an opening as you had there! You must excuse me; but my opinion of your prudence must not be so rudely shaken."
"Why do you not ask the question which Balzac's old Tourangeois judge asks, whenever a culprit is brought before him,—'Who is she?'"
"Taking for granted that there was a woman at the bottom of every mishap? I understand you," said the Major, with a sad smile. "Now let you and me walk a little together, and look at the Echinoid another day —or when I return from Sevastopol—"
Tom went out with him. A new ray of hope had crossed the Major's mind. His meeting with Thurnall might he providential; for he recollected now, for the first time, Mellot's parting hint.
"You knew Elsley Vavasour well?"
"No man better."
"Did you think that there was any tendency to madness in him?"
"No more than in any other selfish, vain, irritable man, with a strong imagination left to run riot."
"Humph! you seem to have divined his character. May I ask you if you knew him before you met him at Aberalva?"