or you, Gilbert," exclaimed Marian,
horrified by this glimpse of bachelor life.

"No, darling, I have never shared his wilder pleasures. There are a few
chosen spirits with whom he consorts at such times. I believe this Sir
David Forster is one of them."

"Sir David has the reputation of leading rather a wild life in London,"
said the Captain, "and of bringing a dissipated set down here every
autumn. Things have not gone well with him. His wife, who was a very
beautiful girl, and whom he passionately loved, was killed by a fall from
her horse a few months after the birth of her first child. The child died
too, and the double loss ruined Sir David. He used to spend the greater
part of his life at Heatherly, and was a general favourite among the
county people; but since that time he has avoided the place, except
during the shooting season. He has a hunting-box in the shires, and is a
regular daredevil over a big country they tell me."

They had reached the little gate opening from the wood into the park by
this time. There was not much difference in the aspect of the sylvan
scene upon the other side of the fence. Sir David's domain had been a
good deal neglected of late years, and the brushwood and brambles grew
thick under the noble old trees. The timber had not yet suffered by its
owner's improvidence. The end of all things must have come for Sir David
before he would have consented to the spoliation of a place he fondly
loved, little as he had cared to inhabit it since the day that shattered
all that was brightest and best in his life.

For some time Captain Sedgewick and his companions went along a footpath
under the shelter of the trees, and then emerged upon a wide stretch of
smooth turf, across which they commanded a perfect view of the principal
front of the old house. It was a quadrangular building of the Elizabethan
period, very plainly built, and with no special beauty to recommend it to
the lover of the picturesque. Whatever charm of form it may have
possessed in the past had been ruthlessly extirpated by the modernisation
of the windows, which were now all of one size and form--a long gaunt
range of unsheltered casements staring blankly out upon the spectator.
There were no flower-beds, no terraced walks, or graceful flights of
steps before the house; only a bare grassplot, with a stiff line of tall
elms on each side, and a wide dry moat dividing it from the turf in the
park. Two lodges--ponderous square b