er in Paris, a packet from Bordeaux to
Santander had cured him of his hurt. The song came unsought to his
lips, but had no wounded heart to salve.

Mr. Manvers was a pleasant-looking young man, sanguine in hue, grey in
the eye, with a twisted sort of smile by no means unattractive. His
features were irregular, but he looked wholesome; his humour was
fitful, sometimes easy, sometimes unaccountably stiff. They called him
a Character at home, meaning that he was liable to freakish asides from
the common rotted road, and could not be counted on. It was true. He,
for his part, called himself an observer of Manvers, which implied that
he had rather watch than take a side; but he was both hot-tempered and
quick-tempered, and might well find himself in the middle of things
before he knew it. His crooked smile, however, seldom deserted him,
seldom was exchanged for a crooked scowl; and the light beard which he
had allowed himself in the solitudes of Paris led one to imagine his
jaw less square than it really was.

I suppose him to have been five foot ten in his boots, and strong to
match. He had a comfortable income, derived from land in
Somersetshire, upon which his mother, a widow lady, and his two
unmarried sisters lived, and attended archery meetings in company of
the curate. The disdain of Miss Eleanor Vernon had cured him of a
taste for such simple joys, and now that, by travel, he had cured
himself of Miss Eleanor, he was travelling on for his pleasure, or, as
he told himself, to avoid the curate. Thus neatly he referred to his
obligations to Church and State in Somersetshire.

By six o'clock on this fine May morning he had already ridden far--from
Sahagun, indeed, where he had spent some idle days, lounging, and
exchanging observations on the weather with the inhabitants. He had
been popular, for he was perfectly simple, and without airs; never
asked what he did not want to know, and never refused to answer what it
was obviously desired he should. But man cannot live upon small talk;
and as he had taken up his rest in Sahagun in a moment of impulse--when
he saw that it possessed a church-dome covered with glazed green
tiles--so now he left it.

"High Heaven!" he had cried, sitting up in bed, "what the deuce am I
doing here? Nothing. Nothing on earth. Let's get out of it." So out
he had got, and could not ask for breakfast at four in the morning.

He rode fast, desiring to make way before the heat bega