In fact, Godfrey Harland had been everything by turns. A guard on the Grand Trunk--a baggage man to a theatrical company--an able seaman on a coaster--and last, though not least, a barman at a ‘hell-upon-earth’ in New York, where he had imbibed his gambling propensities, and whence he had ventured to return to England under an assumed name--not the first he had taken--and make a new circle of acquaintances for himself. ‘Curse that “Peppermint!”’ he was saying, when we first see him; ‘if he had pulled it off at Aintree, I should have been safe. I can’t stand much more of this. They must come down upon me before long. I wouldn’t have minded my shaking at the Lincoln, though it was stiff enough. But I believe they dosed “Peppermint,” and I owe all my debts to a painted quid. By Jove! I should like to know how much old Roper’s worth. If he would stand to lend me a “thou.,” I might make my running with Vansittart’s daughter. I wonder if the old stock-driver meant what he said the other night? Gad! what a stroke of luck it would be. A home at the Antipodes--a settled position with all the old worries left behind me in England, and the chance of an heiress. I mustn’t lose it, if I stake my very soul upon the die. I shall never get such an opportunity of retrenching again. Not if I live to the age of Methusaleh. Never!’ And he drained the glass of brandy and water with a feverish impatience, as though the good fortune he was anticipating lay at the bottom of it. At this juncture the door of the room opened, and a woman entered. What a woman she was. What a graceful, refined, _spirituelle_ creature. Her slight, lissom figure was the impersonation of elegance. Her hazel eyes looked out from her pale features like those of a deer, heavy with unshed tears. Her tender mouth was even now curved in a sad smile, and her sunny hair, with its rich chesnut shades of light and shadow, rippled about her shoulders, and curled caressingly around her youthful face. She was dressed shabbily, and somewhat untidily, for it is hard to keep always tidy when one is poor, but she looked a gentlewoman from head to foot--more, she might have been a princess, masquerading in a beggar’s clothes. And this was Iris Harland, Godfrey Harland’s wife. What could a man like this want with a wife? He had never been constant to one thing in this world. Was it likely he would be constant to a woman? Iris knew to her cost that he was not. But she had already outlived the pain the knowledge gave her. The numerous shocks she had sustained since her marriage had rendered her indifferent. Many an insult she had borne patiently from her husband, and without resentment, until all her love had died away, and left nothing behind it but a feeling of contempt and fear.