“This man, Marx,” I cried, seizing my father’s arm. “Tell me quickly. Has he ever reminded you of anyone?”
My father looked at me wonderingly.
“It is strange that you should ask that,” he said. “Sometimes, especially when I have come upon him alone, or have seen him excited, his tone and little mannerisms have seemed somehow vaguely familiar. And yet,” he added thoughtfully, “I have never been able to recall of whom they have reminded me.”
I opened my trembling lips to speak, but a wave of cold doubt swept in upon me. Surely this thing could not be! I must be mad to let the idea linger for a moment in my mind. And yet——
At that moment of my hesitation, my father’s hand fell heavily upon my arm. He pointed forward along the dark avenue with a shaking finger. In the dim twilight we could see the tall gaunt figure of a man in ragged clothes, making his way up to the castle.
“That is not one of my men, Philip,” he said hoarsely. “Who is it?”
I shook my head.
“It is a stranger.”
My father turned abruptly from the avenue into a side-walk.
“Follow me,” he said; “we will go in by the private way.”