he old order had passed away, and no new order had, as yet,
effectively disclosed itself. He had not formulated all this, or even
consciously recognised the modification of his own attitude.
Nevertheless he felt the gnawing ache of inward emptiness. It
effectually broke up the torpor which had held him. It made him very
restless. It reawoke in him an inclination to speculation and
experiment.

Snow had fallen during the earlier hours of the day, and, the surface
of the ground being frost-bound, it, though by no means deep, remained
unmelted. The whiteness of it, given back by the ceiling and pale
paneling of walls of the Long-Gallery, notwithstanding the generous
fires burning in the two ornate, high-ranging chimney-places, produced,
as the day waned, an effect of rather stark cheerlessness in the great
room. This was at once in unison with Richard's somewhat bleak humour,
and calculated to increase the famine of it.

All day long he had tried to stifle the cry of that same famine, that
same hunger of unplaced energy, by industrious work. He had examined,
noted, here and there transcribed, passages from deeds, letters,
order-books, and diaries offering first-hand information regarding
former generations of Calmadys. It happened that studies he had
recently made in contemporary science, specially in obtaining theories
of biology, had brought home to him what tremendous factors in the
development and fate of the individual are both evolution and heredity.
At first idly, and as a mere pastime, then with increasing
eagerness--in the vague hope his researches might throw light on
matters of moment to himself and of personal application--he had tried
to trace out tastes and strains of tendency common to his ancestors.
But under this head he had failed to make any very notable discoveries.
For these courtiers, soldiers, and sportsmen were united merely by the
obvious characteristics of a high-spirited, free-living race. They were
raised above the average of the country gentry, perhaps, by a greater
appreciation, than is altogether common, of literature and art. But as
Richard soon perceived it was less any persistent peculiarity of mental
and physical constitution, than a similarity of outward event united
them. The perpetually repeated chronicle of violence and accident which
he read, in connection with his people, intrigued his reason, and
called for explanation. Was it possible, he began to ask himself, that
a certain her