As his health improved in the dry, salubrious air of North Africa, he began to interest himself in the antiquities, to explore ruins, to copy inscriptions, and so forgot himself in archæological pursuits. Arminell encouraged him to prosecute these subjects, and he became more enthusiastic on them; he regretted that the increasing heat would send him to Europe. However, on his arrival at Bournemouth, he found occupation in arranging his library and setting out his antiquities. Then he wrote an account of some explorations he had among the megalithic monuments near Constantine for a scientific journal, and this attracted attention, and led to correspondence, and to the article being reprinted with additions, and to a dispute as to the resemblances and dissimilarities between the Constantine monuments and the so-called Druidical remains in Britain. The following winter Saltren was again at Algiers, and resumed his explorations with assiduity, spent much time in planning, sketching, digging, and formed a theory of his own relative to megalithic monuments contrary to that of Mr. Fergusson, whom he resolved to attack and crush. When summer came, at his particular desire, Arminell and he visited Denmark and Norway, where he examined such stone monuments as belonged to a prehistoric period, and then went with her into Brittany. As he became known as an antiquary, his society was sought by men of like tastes, and so he came to have a little circle of acquaintances, which tended to widen, and as those who came to know him through prehistoric rude stone monuments fell in love with his charming young wife, they insisted on their womankind calling and knowing her also. In vain did the ladies ask, “But, who was she?” They were crushed with the reply, “My dears, what does it matter what she _was_, she _is_ the wife of one of our first authorities on comparative megalithology.” So by degrees, the young couple formed a coterie about themselves, and were no longer solitary and feeling as if they were outcasts. Now and then Mr. Welsh ran down to Bournemouth and spent a day with them, and sometimes Mrs. Welsh brought the baby; but the Welshes were no assistance to them in social matters. The Welsh circle was of a different style of mind and manner and interest from that which formed round the Saltrens. It was not a circle which could wax excited over anything prehistoric, it was so completely engrossed in the present. But the Welshes were always received with the utmost warmth and kindness by Arminell, who could not forget what she owed them, and harboured for the Radical journalist an affection quite special, mixed with great respect. She knew the thorough goodness of the man, and she delighted in his smartness.