a rock, a thousand
yards off. Mine is going to be, except from a spectacular point of view,
a very barren sort of year, compared with what yours might be if the
fire once touched your eyes. I go where life is cruder and fiercer,
perhaps, but you remain in the very city of tragedies."

Aynesworth laughed, as he lit a fresh cigarette.

"City of tragedies!" he exclaimed. "It sounds all right, but it's bunkum
all the same. Show me where they lie, Lovell, old chap. Tell me where to
stir the waters."

Several of those who were watching him noticed a sudden change in
Lovell's face. The good humor and bonhomie called up by this last
evening amongst his old friends had disappeared. His face had fallen
into graver lines, his eyes seemed fixed with a curious introspective
steadiness on a huge calendar which hung from the wall. When at last he
turned towards Aynesworth, his tone was almost solemn.

"Some of them don't lie so very far from the surface, Walter," he said.
"There is one"--he took out his watch--"there is one which, if you like,
I will tell you about. I have just ten minutes."

"Good!"

"Go ahead, Lovell, old chap!"

"Have a drink first!"

He held out his hand. They were all silent. He stood up amongst them, by
far the tallest man there, with his back to the chimney piece, and his
eyes still lingering about that calendar.

"Thirteen years ago," he said, "two young men--call them by their
Christian names, Wingrave and Lumley--shared a somewhat extensive
hunting box in Leicestershire. They were both of good family, well
off, and fairly popular, Lumley the more so perhaps. He represented the
ordinary type of young Englishman, with a stronger dash than usual
of selfishness. Wingrave stood for other things. He was reticent and
impenetrable. People called him mysterious."

Lovell paused for a moment to refill his pipe. The sudden light upon
his face, as he struck a match, seemed to bring into vivid prominence
something there, indescribable in words, yet which affected his hearers
equally with the low gravity of his speech. The man himself was feeling
the tragedy of the story he told.

"They seemed," he continued, "always to get on well together, until they
fell in love with the same woman. Her name we will say was Ruth. She
was the wife of the Master of Hounds with whom they hunted. If I had the
story-writing gifts of Aynesworth here, I would try to describe her. As
I haven't, I will simply give you a crude ide