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"Away from the trees?" repeated Charles in some bewilderment.

"Aye," said Gervase, "I like not the trees looking in through the window at me whiles I work."

They had been walking in the Park, and had now come out on the Tillingham marshes. The trees stood in a wide belt between them and the house, but the valley itself was clear save for a small scrub of thorn. The river ran between steep banks through clumps of reeds and sedges. At one spot the windings of the stream brought forward a cape or promontory rising steeply above it.

"This is where I should like to be," said Gervase. "If I might have some arbour here away from the house, facing clear to the river. Some day we might build one—some stone belvedere or templum."

"You would be troubled with the noise of the furnace."

"Nay, that wouldn't trouble me. But I like not the trees—not when I write. Some day, maybe, we can build such a house."

"Yes, surely, some day," said Charles, thinking that his brother had grown more rather than less eccentric during his few months at Conster.