a breath of fresh air after your journey,"
said the doctor, and he led the way across the south terrace, to a
sheltered corner of the level plateau upon which the house was built,
which was known as the fountain garden.

It was rather a deserted garden, thickly surrounded and overgrown
by shrubs. Through the immense spreading Portuguese laurels which
sheltered it from the east, little or no sunshine found its way to the
grey, moss-grown basin and the stone figures supporting it; over which
a thin stream of water continually flowed with a melancholy rhythm, in
perpetual twilight.

A giant ivy grew rankly and thickly about the stone buttresses of this
eastern corner of the house, and around a great mullioned window which
overlooked the fountain garden, and which was the window of Lady
Mary's bedroom.

"These shrubberies want thinning," said John, looking round him rather
disgustedly. "This place is reeking with damp. I should like to cut
down some of these poisonous laurels, and let in the air and the
sunshine, and open out the view of the Brawnton hills."

"And why don't you?" said the doctor, with such energy in his tone
that John stopped short in his pacing of the gravel walk, and looked
at him.

The two men were almost as unlike in appearance as in character.

The doctor was nervous, irritable, and intense in manner; with
deep-set, piercing eyes that glowed like hot coal when he was moved
or excited. A tall, gaunt man, lined and wrinkled beyond his years;
careless of appearance, so far as his shabby clothes were concerned,
yet careful of detail, as was proven by spotless linen and
well-preserved, delicate hands.

He was indifferent utterly to the opinion of others, to his own
worldly advancement, or to any outer consideration, when in pursuit of
the profession he loved; and he knew no other interest in life, save
one. He had the face of a fanatic or an enthusiast; but also of a man
whose understanding had been so cultivated as to temper enthusiasm
with judgment.

He had missed success, and was neither resigned to his disappointment,
nor embittered by it.

The gaze of those dark eyes was seldom introspective; rather, as it
seemed, did they look out eagerly, sadly, pitifully at the pain and
sorrow of the world; a pain he toiled manfully to lessen, so far as
his own infinitesimal corner of the universe was concerned.

John Crewys, on the other hand, was, to the most casual observer, a
successful man; a man