pent
some years in certain vague employments, and having contracted as much
debt as his creditors would permit, and more than his father would pay,
he had gone through the Bankruptcy Court, and returned home to drag
through life wearily, through days and weeks so appallingly idle, that
he often feared to get out of bed in the morning. At first his father
had tried to make use of him in his agency business, and it was
principally owing to Mr. Fred's bullying and insolent manners that Mr.
Scully was now unable to leave his house unless accompanied by police.

Fred was about thirty years of age. His legs were long, his hands were
bony, and 'stableyard' was written in capital letters on his face. He
carried a _Sportsman_ under his arm, a penny and a half-crown jingled in
his pocket; and as he walked he lashed the trousers and boot, whose
elegance was an echo of the old Regent Street days, with an ash-plant.

Such was the physiology of this being, and from it the psychology is
easy to surmise: a complete powerlessness to understand that there was
anything in life worth seeking except pleasure--and pleasure to Fred
meant horses and women. Of earthly honour the greatest was to be well
known in an English hunting country; and he was not averse to speaking
of certain ladies of title, with whom he had been on intimate terms, and
with whom, it was said, he corresponded. On occasions he would read or
recite poems, cut from the pages of the Society Journals, to his lady
friends.

May, however, saw nothing but the outside. The already peeling-off
varnish of a few years of London life satisfied her. Given a certain
versatility in turning a complimentary phrase, the abundant ease with
which he explained his tastes, which, although few, were pronounced, add
to these the remnant of fashion that still lingered in his
wardrobe--scarfs from the Burlington Arcade, scent from Bond Street,
cracked patent-leather shoes and mended silk stockings--and it will be
understood how May built something that did duty for an ideal out of
this broken-down swell.

She was a girl of violent blood, and, excited by the air of the
hunting-field, she followed Fred's lead fearlessly; to feel the life of
the horse throbbing underneath her passioned and fevered her flesh until
her mental exaltation reached the rushing of delirium. Then his evening
manners fascinated her, and, as he leaned back smoking in the
dining-room arm-chair, his patent-leather shoes prop