But he was old, and he looked feeble, so her mind instantly changed again, and she offered him a seat on a bench beside the arched doorway with the superscription: "Nor Poverty nor Riches, but Daily Bread Under Mine Own Fig Tree." After the custom of the country, Carterette at once offered him refreshment, and brought him brandy--good old brandy was always to be got at the house of Elie Mattingley! As he drank she noticed a peculiar, uncanny twitching of the fingers and eyelids.

The old man's eyes were continually shifting from place to place.

He asked Carterette many questions.

He had known the house years before--did the deep stream still run beneath it?
Was the round hole still in the floor of the back room, from which water used to be drawn in old days?
Carterette replied that it was M.Detricand's bedroom now, and you could plainly hear the stream running beneath the house.

Did not the noise of the water worry poor M.Detricand then?
And so it still went straight on to the sea--and, of course, much swifter after such a heavy rain as they had had the day before.
Carterette took him into every room in the house save her own and the Chevalier's.