luckily Owen was by no means a poor man, the prescription was not so
hard to carry out as might have been the case with another patient.

True, this break in his life interfered with several cherished projects.
In the first--and most important--place, his marriage must be delayed;
and although Miss Vivian Rees was only twenty, and might be considered
fully young to be a bride, the delay, to the ardent lover, was
vexatious, at the least.

Then the review, to which he had alluded in his conversation with Barry,
had perforce to be shelved; and although there was plenty of time for
the production of such a literary newcomer, he had felt, at the moment,
as though called upon to abandon altogether a beloved ideal.

But the fiat had gone forth; and indeed he had agreed entirely with the
medical verdict which pronounced him unfit to shoulder fresh tasks until
his old strength should be regained. Therefore, unwillingly, but none
the less unflinchingly, he had made preparations to leave England for a
year's leisurely travel in the East, starting, as it were, from Bombay
and journeying onwards wherever the fancy took him.

It happened that during his travels he fell in with a couple of old
schoolfellows who were on the verge of a sporting expedition; and Owen,
who by that time was tired of his loafing method of travel, jumped with
alacrity at an invitation to join the party.

They had glorious sport; and in the excitement and vigour of the chase
Owen regained all his old bodily strength and added thereto a quite
fresh store of health and spirits. When at length he turned his face
homewards he knew himself to be in such condition as he had never before
experienced; and as he sat opposite his host to-night, eating and
drinking gaily in this quiet room, he presented to Barry a picture of
such perfect health as is rarely met with in the streets of London.

"Yes." Barry brought his leisurely survey to a close. "You do look
uncommonly fit, I suppose you've had a gorgeous time."

Thus invited, Owen launched forth into an account of some of his most
thrilling adventures, and the time flew as he recounted the tale of the
glorious nights and days he had lived through, or made his hearer laugh
with his stories of the various attendants and their humours.

The clock had chimed the hour of midnight before the friends left the
table; and then, sitting by the rosy fire, with pipes alight, each one
felt that the moment had come in which