f a
line of gentlemen and scholars who had given the world much of service
in their day, his material environment offered him no obstacles to be
overcome. There were no barriers between him and any normal desires and
ambitions, nothing to excite his emulation with suggestions that there
were forbidden and therefore infinitely desirable gardens in which he
might wander a welcome guest. But life sets a premium on hard knocks. It
is usually the bantling which is cast upon the rocks who wins most of
the prizes, having acquired in a hard school powers of resistance and
endurance.

Seagreave's pleasant experiences continued through youth into manhood.
When quite young he became engaged to a charming girl about his own age
whom his guardians considered eminently suitable. Among many
friendships, he had one so congenial that he fancied no circumstance
could arise which could strain or break this tie.

And then, on the very eve of his marriage, his sweetheart had eloped
with this friend of his boyhood, and he had not only this wound of the
heart to endure, but also the consciousness that he was pilloried as a
blind fool by all of his acquaintances.

Consequently he had, in his first young bitterness and heartbreak, taken
a sort of gloomy satisfaction in living remote from his fellow beings
and burying himself in the wilds, ever strengthening his capacity to do
without the ordered and cultivated life of which he had been a part, and
which had seemed essential to his well-being; and he had no
disillusionizing past experiences to teach him the philosophy that time
assuages all griefs, and that it is the part of common sense to take
life as you find it.

Gradually his new manner of living, of wandering whither he would
without ties or responsibilities, became a habit to him. He lost
interest in the world of achievement as well as in the world of manners,
but so insidious was this change, this shifting of the point of view,
that he had never fully realized it until now when, in some way, some
indefinite, goading and not altogether pleasant way, Pearl was bringing
a faint realization of his acquired habit of mind home to him.

As Pearl watched him and wondered what remembrance it was that clouded
his face, her interest in him increased. "I wonder--" she said, and
hesitated.

Her words recalled him to himself immediately; with a little gesture of
impatience as if annoyed at his own weakness, he put from him these
morbid memorie