"With crime?"
"Yes, memoirs of Vidocq—Stories of Robbery and Murder, The Newgate Chronicle, and Jonathan Wilde; his library is filled with gruesome volumes of that kind. Did you ever hear of Selwyn the wit, the friend of Horace Walpole, Miss Crane?"
"No," murmured Miriam, self-possessed but colourless to the lips.
"His great delight was to see men hanged. My uncle seems to have the same queer taste. If public executions were in vogue I believe he would attend every one."
"John," called out the Squire, "what are you saying to Miss Crane? You're making her nervous, surely; she has lost all her colour."
"No, no," cried Miriam; "I am quite well."
"What a brute I am," said Dundas aloud; "but the fact is I was talking of your penchant for crime."
"Oh yes," said Mrs. Darrow vivaciously; "it's really horrid of Uncle Barton to be so fond of these things."
"Crime!" chuckled the Squire; "and what do you call crime? I'm a student of human nature in the depths, if that's what you mean. I like to search out the springs of action—to learn what moves man, the machine."
"In short, you are a realist, uncle," said Gerald.