never went so far as to have any talk with himself on the subject. Fanshawe had rooms in London, where he appeared generally for a portion of the season. He had been in the habit of meeting Tom Heriot in Leicestershire for the hunting, just as he was in the habit of meeting certain other kinds of men, periodically, in other places. By means of thus dividing his year, and keeping to the regular routine of change, of which men without any duties make a kind of fantastic duty for themselves, his acquaintance was simply unlimited. He knew all kinds of people, and most of the people whom he knew, he knew intimately. This was how Tom Heriot and he had become friends--friends by accident as it were, by the mere fact of meeting year after year in the same place, doing the same thing at the same moment. They had been intimates, but no more friends than this implies, at the moment when Tom, by Fanshawe’s side, was struck by the stroke of that grim unsuspected Death which hovers about the hunting-field. It was Fanshawe who helped to lift him, to disengage him from his fallen horse, and carry him to the bed which turned out to be his death-bed. And the two nights of watching which followed made Fanshawe something like Tom Heriot’s brother, made him the benefactor of Tom Heriot’s family, the object of their warmest gratitude, and connected for ever with poor Tom’s name and memory. Nothing could be more real than this connexion, and yet nothing could be more accidental or arbitrary. The position was quite false, for he knew in reality but little of Tom; and yet it was perfectly natural and true, for he had been to Tom in his hour of need all that a brother could have been; and to Tom’s father and sister this stranger was no more a stranger; he was a son, a brother, “Tom’s dearest friend.” And it seemed only natural to both parties that Fanshawe should accompany the mournful _cortége_ to Pitcomlie--and that he who had watched Tom so tenderly should help to lay him in his grave, should support his fellow-watchers, and do what he could to console his friend’s family.