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What had they done to disappoint him?”
    He hesitated, fingering his tankard of ale, his eyes still watching the flames. “Ned the youngest was always a sullen, difficult child,” he said at last. “No one took much notice of him. He was dark and ungainly and not in the least handsome. Vere, the second son, was too serious and staid, and he and my father could never agree on anything, least of all on how the lands should be farmed. Vere is keenly interested in agriculture and wanted to use new scientific methods which my father thought were a great deal of nonsense. The crowning disaster came when Vere secretly married a village girl, the daughter of the local witch. My father disowned him, then repented and forgave him later. I think in spite of himself my father was impressed by Alice, Vere’s wife. She’s clever enough not to try to be something she’s not, and she’s made no effort to adopt a refined speaking voice or wear clothes which are too grand and extravagant. She’s quiet, very simple and unaffected in her dress and manner—and at least presentable. Also I believe she’s an excellent mother. She’s bo rn Vere five or six children, if my memory is correct. Not all of them have lived, of course, but I think three are surviving so far. However, in spite of the fact that the marriage was not unsuccessful, my father never fully forgave Vere for marrying beneath him.”
    “And the eldest son,” I said. “Why was he a disappointment?”
    “Rodric?” A sudden draught made the flames leap up the chimney with a roar again before subsiding beneath the glowing logs. The wind rattled fiercely at the shutters. “Rodric died. It was the day of my father’s death. He rode off across the Marsh to Rye and the mists blew in from the sea to engulf him. I went after him but all I found was his horse wandering among the dykes and his hat floating among the rushes near a marshy tract of land. His horse must have missed its footing on the narrow path and thrown him into the boggy waters of the mere.”
    I shivered, picturing all too vividly the mists of the marshes I had never seen, the twisting path from Haraldsdyke to Rye. “Is there no road, then?” I said in a low voice. “Is there no road which links the house to the town?”
    “Certainly, but Rodric didn’t want to take the road. He was trying to escape, taking the old path across the road.”
    It was like that moment in many dreams when a familiar landscape is suddenly contorted without warning into a hideous vista. I had been listening so tranquilly to Axel’s narrative that I did not grasp the drift of what he was saying until it met me face to face. The shock made the color drain from my face. I stared at him wordlessly.
    “My father died as the result of a blow from the butt of a gun,” said Axel quietly, “and it was Rodric who struck the blow.”
    The landlord came in then to inquire whether our meal was satisfactory and whether there was anything else we required. When he had gone I said: “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
    Axel glanced aside. I sensed for a moment that I had come closer than I had ever come to disturbing the smooth veneer of his sophistication. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “The story is past history,” he said. “It’s over now, the affair closed. It’s necessary that you should know of it as you will undoubtedly hear the story from other people, but it need not concern you.”
    But I felt that it already concerned me. “What brought Rodric to do such a terrible thing?” I said appalled. “I don’t understand.”
    “No,” he said. “You would not understand. You never knew Rodric.”
    “Tell me about him.”
    “He’ s dead, ” said Axel. “You need not concern yourself with his ghost. ”
    “Yes, but—”
    “He was as wild and turbulent as Vere was staid and predictable. He was like a child in his ceaseless search for some new adventure which would give him a bizarre sense of excitement. He was