way?"

"Nowell."

"Marian Nowell--a very pretty name! When do you think of going back to
Lidford?"

"In about a month. My brother-in-law wants me to go back to them for the
1st of September."

"Then I think I shall run down to Forster's, and have a pop at the
pheasants. It will give me an opportunity of being presented to Miss
Nowell."

"I shall be very pleased to introduce you, old fellow. I know that you
will admire her."

"Well, I am not a very warm admirer of the sex in general; but I am sure
to like your future wife, Gil, if it is only because you have chosen
her."

"And your own affairs, Jack--how have they been going on?"

"Not very brightly. I am not a lucky individual, you know. Destiny and I
have been at odds ever since I was a schoolboy."

"Not in love yet, John?"

"No," the other answered, with rather a gloomy look.

He was sitting on a corner of the ponderous desk in a lounging attitude,
gazing meditatively at his boots, and hitting one of them now and then
with a cane he carried, in a restless kind of way.

"You see, the fact of the matter is, Gil," he began at last, "as I told
you just now, if ever I do marry, mercenary considerations are likely to
be at the bottom of the business. I don't mean to say that I would marry
a woman I disliked, and take it out of her in ill-usage or neglect. I am
not quite such a scoundrel as that. But if I had the luck to meet with a
woman I _could_ like, tolerably pretty and agreeable, and all that kind
of thing, and weak enough to care for me--a woman with a handsome
fortune--I should be a fool not to snap at such a chance."

"I see," exclaimed Gilbert, "you have met with such a woman."

"I have."

Again the gloomy look came over the dark strongly-marked face, the thick
black eyebrows contracted in a frown, and the cane was struck impatiently
against John Saltram's boot.

"But you are not in love with her; I see that in your face, Jack. You'll
think me a sentimental fool, I daresay, and fancy I look at things in a
new light now that I'm down a pit myself; but, for God's sake, don't
marry a woman you can't love. Tolerably pretty and agreeable won't do,
Jack,--that means indifference on your part; and, depend upon it, when a
man and woman are tied together for life, there is only a short step from
indifference to dislike."

"No, Gilbert, it's not that," answered the other, still moodily
contemplative of his boots. "I really like the lady well enough--