"I don't mean it for one," said I sturdily. "I only mean the influence of your own conception of your old man and his powers. I disbelieve in him and them as much as ever, but I don't disbelieve in your ability to make both exist in some weaker mind than your own. And where they do catch on, remember, those wild ideas of yours may always get the upper hand. It isn't everybody who can think the things you do, Uvo, and never look like doing 'em!"

"I don't agree with you a bit, Gilly. I never believe those blithering blighters who attribute their crimes to the bad example of some criminal hero of the magazines or of the stage. Villain-worship doesn't carry you to that length unless you're a bit of a villain in the first instance."

"But suppose you are?" I argued, almost before I saw the point that I was making. "Suppose you have as few scruples, principles, 'pangs and fears'--call them what you like--as this fellow Nettleton. Suppose you're full of fire of sorts, but also as irresponsible and chuckle-headed as you yourself say he is. Well, then, I say, it's taking responsibility for two to go pumping your theories into as sensitive an engine as all that!"

Uvo clapped his thin hands softly as there came a knock at the door. "Well, he's a practical man, Gilly, I must admit, so let's leave it at that. Come in! What is it, Jane?"

"The servant from Mr. Nettleton's, sir, wants to see Mr. Gillon," said the maid.

I began by explaining why this scarcely comes into the category of Witching Hill coincidences. Yet it was rather startling at the time, and Uvo Delavoye looked as though his evil ancestor had materialised at the foot of the bed.

"All right, Jane! Mr. Gillon will be down directly."

It was the first time his voice had risen to more than a whisper, and it was shaky. The maid seemed to catch some echo of an alarm already communicated to herself, and faintly sounded in her own announcement.

"Sarah seems very anxious to see you, sir," she ventured, turning to me, and then withdrew in some embarrassment.

I rose to follow. Sarah was almost as great a character as her master, and I for one liked her the better of the two. She was a simple, faithful, incompetent old body, who once told me that she had known Mr. Nettleton, man and boy, most of his life, but without betraying a page of his past. She had come with him to Witching Hill Road 

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