a journey into a far land--the far land of the buried past.
He was thinking of that story he would have had to tell Meryl Pym. Of
Joan's sad life, sad love, sad death. Of how long ago she had lain
dead upon the heather, as far as anyone could tell, slain by his hand.

He went back to it now, page by page; it seemed in some sort of
penance that he must give. The first pages dealt with those two gay
young brothers in the Blues; the elder, Peter, the recognised heir to
the rich bachelor uncle, who now made life gay for them with an
allowance of two thousand a year each; but he was an autocrat and
something of a tyrant, the old uncle, and his will had to be law. He
did not mind their sowing of wild oats if they were what he called
gentlemanly wild oats, and merely got them talked about as gay young
dogs, and he was always generous with an extra cheque if they got into
difficulties; but he would not have foolhardy, quixotic affairs at
all. There he put his foot down. When the younger brother, Geoffrey, a
youth of small, mean aims and temperament, led the pretty daughter of
one of the keepers into trouble, he told his uncle he was going to
give her a fixed sum out of his own allowance yearly while she was
unmarried, and something always for the child.

"Nonsense," said the old gentleman tartly; "the girl shouldn't have
been such a fool. I will pay one hundred pounds into the bank for her,
and she shall not have another penny." Geoffrey thought himself well
out of the scrape, but before the incident closed there were words
between the brothers that neither ever forgot. Peter took a different
view of the matter entirely; he knew the girl, and he knew that she
was gentle and confiding, and that Geoffrey had won her round with
promises. So he called his brother a cur, and a few other things with
strong adjectives, and because he knew he was in the wrong Geoffrey
never forgave him. He went further, and hated him from that time
onward.

But the incident was destined to bear fruit of a far more searching
nature. Because he heard the girl was very ill and quietly fretting
herself to death, Peter went one day to see her, prepared to make any
amends in his power for his brother's sin. And beside the sofa where
the girl lay he met Joan Whitby. And such are the vagaries of human
nature, with its beginning on that day, the gay, light heart, the
fickle fancies, light loves, wild escapades of the devil-may-care
young sportsman, all vanis