It was with a sense of dignity and importance such as he had never experienced before, that Kester St. George walked downstairs that morning to his uncle’s breakfast-room. He felt himself to be a very different individual, both in his own estimation and in that of the world, from the despairing, impecunious wretch who, but a few short hours before, was sitting in the smoke-room of his club, deliberating as to the easiest mode of bidding farewell to a world in whose economy there no longer seemed to be a place for him. As he walked downstairs he could not help thinking that if his cousin’s death had not happened till a month later he himself would, almost certainly, have been dead before that time—in which case both life and eleven thousand a year would have been lost to him for the sake of one month more of patient waiting. What a surprise it would have been if in “that other place” his shade had suddenly encountered the shade of Lionel Dering! He dismissed the thought with an impatient shrug, but he could not help shivering, and for a moment or two an ice-cold air seemed to blow round him, that lifted his hair with its invisible fingers and touched his heart as with a death-cold hand. Kester St. George and his uncle breakfasted tête-à-tête that morning. The meal was rather a late one. Messrs. Drayton and Whiffins had been up for hours, and were out exploring the beauties of the neighbourhood. “And as for Richard,” explained the General to Kester, “he’s one of the strangest fellows in existence. He takes his meals anyhow and at any time, and one never knows where to look for him, whether indoors or out. Still, I like the boy—yes, I can’t help liking him. By-the-by, I think he told me the other day that he had met you once or twice many years ago?” “I never remember meeting Richard Dering but once,” answered Kester. “As you say, sir, that was many years ago.” “Well, if you remember what he was like then, you won’t find him much altered now. But here he comes to speak for himself.” As the General spoke, Richard Dering lounged slowly into the room through the open French window. He halted for a moment just inside the room, and the eyes of the two cousins met across the table, each one curious to see what the other was like.