All this aimless chatter made Bernard rather impatient. "I must cut along," he said; "it's rather foggy and it will take me a long time to fetch my barracks. No, thank you, Mark, I don't want anything to drink. Give me a couple of those cigarettes, Conniston. Good night."
"Won't you stop the night?" said Durham, hospitably. "Conniston is staying."
"He's on furlough and I'm not," said Bernard, who was now putting on his slouch hat in the hall. "Good night, Conniston. Good night, Durham."
"You'll think over what I told you," said the lawyer, opening the door himself and looking outside. "I say, what a fog! Stop here, Bernard."
"No! No! Thanks all the same." Gore stepped out into the white mist, buttoning his coat. "Give me a light. There! Go back and yarn with Dick, I'll come and see you again. As to Sir Simon—"
"What about him?"
"I'll think over what you said. If possible I'll go down and stop at Cove Castle, and see Sir Simon at night. By the way, what's the time, Durham?"
The lawyer was about to pull out his watch when Conniston appeared at the end of the hall in high spirits. "My dear friend," he said in a dramatic manner, "it is the twenty-third of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and—"
"Bosh!" interrupted Bernard. "The time, Mark?"
"Just ten o'clock. Good night!"