else was staying there. Fitzpiers felt a
vague disappointment that the young lady was not Mrs. Charmond, of whom
he had heard so much; and without pausing longer to gaze at a carcass
from which the spirit had flown, he bent his steps homeward.

Later in the evening Fitzpiers was summoned to visit a cottage patient
about two miles distant. Like the majority of young practitioners in
his position he was far from having assumed the dignity of being driven
his rounds by a servant in a brougham that flashed the sunlight like a
mirror; his way of getting about was by means of a gig which he drove
himself, hitching the rein of the horse to the gate post, shutter hook,
or garden paling of the domicile under visitation, or giving pennies to
little boys to hold the animal during his stay--pennies which were well
earned when the cases to be attended were of a certain cheerful kind
that wore out the patience of the little boys.

On this account of travelling alone, the night journeys which Fitzpiers
had frequently to take were dismal enough, a serious apparent
perversity in nature ruling that whenever there was to be a birth in a
particularly inaccessible and lonely place, that event should occur in
the night. The surgeon, having been of late years a town man, hated
the solitary midnight woodland. He was not altogether skilful with the
reins, and it often occurred to his mind that if in some remote depths
of the trees an accident were to happen, the fact of his being alone
might be the death of him. Hence he made a practice of picking up any
countryman or lad whom he chanced to pass by, and under the disguise of
treating him to a nice drive, obtained his companionship on the
journey, and his convenient assistance in opening gates.

The doctor had started on his way out of the village on the night in
question when the light of his lamps fell upon the musing form of
Winterborne, walking leisurely along, as if he had no object in life.
Winterborne was a better class of companion than the doctor usually
could get, and he at once pulled up and asked him if he would like a
drive through the wood that fine night.

Giles seemed rather surprised at the doctor's friendliness, but said
that he had no objection, and accordingly mounted beside Mr. Fitzpiers.

They drove along under the black boughs which formed a network upon the
stars, all the trees of a species alike in one respect, and no two of
them alike in another. Looking up as