e of becoming an explorer; he had
merely rambled, mostly in pursuit of fowl or quadruped. When he
married, all hope for him was at an end. The beautiful and brilliant
daughter of a fashionable widow, her income a trifle more than
Carnaby's own; devoted to the life of cities, wherein she shone; an
enchantress whose spell would not easily be broken, before whom her
husband bowed in delighted subservience--such a woman might flatter
Hugh's pride, but could scarce be expected to draw out his latent
energies and capabilities. This year, for the first time, he had
visited no wild country; his journeying led only to Paris, to Vienna.
In due season he shot his fifty brace on somebody's grouse-moor, but
the sport did not exhilarate him.

An odd and improbable alliance, that between Hugh Carnaby and Harvey
Rolfe. Yet in several ways they suited each other. Old-time memories
had a little, not much, to do with it; more of the essence of the
matter was their feeling of likeness in difference. Ten years ago
Carnaby felt inclined to call his old school-fellow a 'cad'; Harvey saw
nothing in Hugh but robust snobbishness. Nowadays they had the pleasant
sense of understanding each other on most points, and the result was a
good deal of honest mutual admiration. The one's physical vigour and
adroitness, the other's active mind, liberal thoughts, studious habits,
proved reciprocally attractive. Though in unlike ways, both were
impressively modern. Of late it had seemed as if the man of open air,
checked in his natural courses, thrown back upon his meditations,
turned to the student, with hope of guidance in new paths, of counsel
amid unfamiliar obstacles. To the observant Rolfe, his friend's
position abounded in speculative interest. With the course of years,
each had lost many a harsher characteristic, whilst the inner man
matured. That their former relations were gradually being reversed,
neither perhaps had consciously noted; but even in the jests which
passed between them on Harvey's arrival this evening, it appeared
plainly enough that Hugh Carnaby no longer felt the slightest
inclination to regard his friend as an inferior.

The room, called library, contained one small case of books, which
dealt with travel and sport. Furniture of the ordinary kind, still new,
told of easy circumstances and domestic comfort. Round about the walls
hung a few paintings and photographs, intermingled with the stuffed
heads of animals slain in the chase