had had no home since his father died years
ago,--his mother had died when he was very young--and his eldest
brother had taken possession of the family mansions, placing them in
the control of his foreign wife, who sat in his mother's chair and in
her place at table.

He had wished so often in the past for a home of his own, where he
could gather round him young faces and lose himself in promoting the
interests of those for whom he had become forever responsible. He had
longed for the Englishman's castle, for his own little realm of
interest where he could be supreme; and now it was never to be.

The idea gained in sacred importance as it receded forever from all
possibility. In far-off days it had been associated with a vision in
blue, with a face like a dresden-china shepherdess and hair like
Aphrodite's. Laughter and wit and raillery had been part of the
picture; and long evenings in the winter-time, when they two would read
the books they both loved, and maybe talk awhile of world events in
which his work had place; in which his gifts were found, shaping,
influencing, producing. The garden, the orchard--he loved orchards--the
hedges of flowering ivy and lilacs; and the fine grey and chestnut
horses driven by his hand or hers through country lanes; the smell of
the fallen leaves in the autumn evenings; or the sting of the bracing
January wind across the moors or where the woodcock awaited its
spoiler. All these had been in the vision. It was all over now. He had
seen an image, it had vanished, and he was in the desert alone.

A band was playing "The Banks o' Garry Owen," and the tramp of marching
men came to his ears. The crowd surged round him, pushed him, forced
him forward, carried him on, till the marching men came near, were
alongside of him--a battalion of Volunteers, going to the war to see
"Kruger's farmers bite the dust!"--a six months' excursion, as they
thought. Then the crowd, as it cheered jostled him against the wall of
the shops, and presently he found himself forced down Buckingham
Street. It was where he wished to go in order to reach Adrian Fellowes'
apartments. He did not notice, as he was practically thrown into the
street, that Krool was almost beside him.

The street was not well lighted, and he looked neither to right nor
left. He was thinking hard of what he would say to Adrian Fellowes, if,
and when, he saw him.

But not far behind him was a figure that stole along in the darker
shadow