ate
of entanglement that was very near insolvency; and wise friends told
Gilbert Fenton that the only hope of coming well out of these
perplexities lay with himself. The business was too good to be
sacrificed, and the business was all his father had left behind him, with
the exception of a houseful of handsome furniture, two or three
carriages, and a couple of pairs of horses, which were sold by auction
within a few weeks of the funeral.

Gilbert Fenton took upon himself the management of the business. He had a
clear comprehensive intellect, which adapted itself very easily to
commerce. He put his shoulder to the wheel with a will, and worked for
the first three years of his business career as it is not given to many
men to work in the course of their lives. By that time the ship had been
steered clear of all rocks and quicksands, and rode the commercial waters
gallantly. Gilbert was not a rich man, but was in a fair way to become a
rich man; and the name of Fenton stood as high as in the palmiest days of
his father's career.

His sister had fortunately married Martin Lister some years before her
father's death, and had received her dowry at the time of her marriage.
Gilbert had only himself to work for. At first he had worked for the sake
of his dead father's honour and repute; later he fell into a groove, like
other men, and worked for the love of money-making--not with any sordid
love of money, but with that natural desire to accumulate which grows out
of a business career.

To-night he was in an unusually thoughtful humour, and inclined to weigh
things in the balance with a doubtfulness as to their value which was new
to him. The complete idleness and emptiness of his life in the country
had made him meditative. Was it worth living, that monotonous business
life of his? Would not the time soon come in which its dreariness would
oppress him as the dulness of Lidford House had oppressed him to-night?
His youth was fast going--nay, had it not indeed gone from him for ever?
had not youth left him all at once when he began his commercial
career?--and the pleasures that had been fresh enough within the last few
years were rapidly growing stale. He knew the German spas, the
pine-groves where the hand played, the gambling-saloons and their
company, by heart, though he had never stayed more than a fortnight at
any one of them. He had exhausted Brittany and the South of France in
these rapid scampers; skimmed the cream of