enhance
the pleasure of his days by thrusting into the background all
recollections of the reality of any other existence than that of the
hour. As he tramped through fern and heather he would remember nothing
but that there was a chance--there was chance, good Lord! After a man
not over strong reached fifty-four or five, there were more chances than
there had been earlier.

After hours spent in such moods, it was not pleasant to come by accident
upon Walderhurst riding his fine chestnut, erect and staid, and be
saluted by the grave raising of his whip to his hat. Or to return to the
Farm just as the Palstrey barouche turned in at the gate with Lady
Walderhurst sitting in it glowing with health and that enjoyable
interest in all things which gave her a kind of radiance of eye and
colour.

She came at length in a time when she did not look quite so radiant.
This, it appeared, was from a reason which might be regarded as natural
under the circumstances. A more ardent man than Lord Walderhurst might
have felt that he could not undertake a journey to foreign lands which
would separate him from a wife comparatively new. But Lord Walderhurst
was not ardent, and he had married a woman who felt that he did all
things well--that, in fact, a thing must be well because it was his
choice to do it. His journey to India might, it was true, be a matter of
a few months, and involved diplomatic business for which a certain
unimpeachable respectability was required. A more brilliant man, who had
been less respectable in the most decorous British sense, would not have
served the purpose of the government.

Emily's skin had lost a shade of its healthful freshness, it struck
Hester, when she saw her. There was a suggestion of fulness under her
eyes. Yet with the bright patience of her smile she defied the remote
suspicion that she had shed a tear or so before leaving home. She
explained the situation with an affectionally reverent dwelling upon the
dignity of the mission which would temporarily bereave her of her mate.
Her belief in Walderhurst's intellectual importance to the welfare of
the government was a complete and touching thing.

"It will not be for very long," she said, "and you and I must see a
great deal of each other. I am so glad you are here. You know how one
misses--" breaking off with an admirable air of determined cheer--"I
must not think of that."

Walderhurst congratulated himself seriously during the days before h