But the enforced solitary companionship with this ruminator of a fellow set him asking whether the godless dog he had picked up by the wayside was not incarnate another of the sins he had to expiate.

Day after day, almost hourly, some new stroke fell on him.

Why?
Was he selected for persecution because he was wealthy?
The Fates were driving him in one direction, no doubt of that.
This further black mood evaporated, and like a cessation of English storm-weather bequeathed him gloom.

Ashamed of the mood, he was nevertheless directed by its final shadows to see the ruminating tramp in Gower, and in Madge the prize-fighter's jilt: and round about Esslemont a world eyeing an Earl of Fleetwood, who painted himself the man he was, or was held to be, by getting together such a collection, from the daughter of the Old Buccaneer to the ghastly corpse of Ambrose Mallard.

Why, clearly, wealth was the sole origin and agent of the mischief.