ing to melancholy, and a
prolongation of his domestic troubles would not have made him less
hearty in his outward bearing, but the progress of time had developed
elements in his nature which were scarcely compatible with a continuance
of the life he had been leading. He had begun to put to himself ominous
questions; such, for instance, as--What necessity was he under to
maintain the appearance of a cheerful domesticity? If things got just a
trifle more unbearable, why should he not make for himself somewhere
else a new home? He was, it is true, startled at his own audacity, and
only some strangely powerful concurrence of motives--such as he was yet
to know--could in reality have made him reckless. For the other features
of his character, those which tended to stability, were still strong
enough to oppose passions which had not found the occasion for their
full development. He was not exactly avaricious, but pursuit of money
was in him an hereditary instinct. By mere force of habit he stuck
zealously to his business, and, without thinking much about his wealth,
disliked unusual expenditure. His wife had taunted him with meanness,
with low money-grubbing; the effect had been to make him all the more
tenacious of habits which might have given way before other kinds of
reproof. So he had gone on living the ordinary life, to all appearances
well contented, in reality troubled from time to time by a reawakening
of those desires which he had understood only to have them frustrated.
He groped in a dim way after things which, by chance perceived, seemed
to have a certain bearing on his life. The discovery in himself of an
interest in architecture was an instance; but for his visit to the
Continent he might never have been led to think of the subject. Then
there was his fondness for the moors and mountains, the lochs and
islands, of the north. On the whole, he preferred to travel in Scotland
by himself; the scenery appealed to a poetry that was in him, if only he
could have brought it into consciousness. Already he had planned for the
present August a tour among the Hebrides, and had made it out with his
maps and guidebooks, not without careful consideration of expense. Why
did he linger beyond the day on which he had decided to set forth?

For several days it had been noticed at the mill that he lacked
something of his wonted attention in matters of business. Certainly his
occupation about eleven o'clock one morning had little ap