Scotchman--a man
behind his day, who had rusted and grown old among the soft diseases
of Carlingford, where sharp practice was so seldom necessary; and no
opening appeared for young Rider except in the new district, in the smug
corner house, with the surgery and the red lamp, and M.R.C.S. on a brass
plate on his door.

If you can imagine that the young man bowed his spirit to this without a
struggle, you do the poor young fellow injustice. He had been hard
enough put to it at divers periods of his life. Ambition had not been
possible for him either in one shape or another. Some people said he had
a vulgar mind when he subsided into that house; other people declared
him a shabby fellow when he found out, after the hardest night's thought
he ever went through in his life, that he durst not ask Bessie Christian
to marry him. You don't suppose that he did not know in his secret
heart, and feel tingling through every vein, those words which nobody
ever said to his face? But he could not help it. He could only make an
indignant gulp of his resentment and shame, which were shame and
resentment at himself for wanting the courage to dare everything, as
well as at other people for finding him out, and go on with his work
as he best could. He was not a hero nor a martyr; men made of that
stuff have large compensations. He was an ordinary individual, with no
sublimity in him, and no compensation to speak of for his sufferings--no
consciousness of lofty right-doing, or of a course of action superior to
the world.

Perhaps you would prefer to go up-stairs and see for yourself what was
the skeleton in Edward Rider's cupboard, rather than have it described
to you. His drag came to the door an hour ago, and he went off with Care
sitting behind him, and a certain angry pang aching in his heart, which
perhaps Bessie Christian's wedding-veil, seen far off in church yesterday,
might have something to do with. His looks were rather black as he
twitched the reins out of his little groom's hands, and went off at a
startling pace, which was almost the only consolation the young fellow
had. Now that he is certainly gone, and the coast clear, we may go
up-stairs. It is true he all but kicked the curate down for taking a
similar liberty, but we who are less visible may venture while he is
away.

This skeleton is not in a cupboard. It is in an up-stairs room,
comfortable enough, but heated, close, unwholesome--a place from which,
even when the