The five years had left their mark upon him; the hours of misery which no one suspected had left their mark upon him. The lines about his eyes and mouth had deepened; his hair was greyer, his figure less erect. Men who, in their turn, sat up half the night to earn a guinea, envied him, cited his career as an example of brilliant luck--the success of others is always "luck"--and, though they assumed that a fellow was "generally cut up a bit when his wife went wrong," found it difficult to conceive that Sir George had permitted domestic trouble to alloy his triumphs to any great extent. Nobody imagined that there were still nights when he suffered scarcely less acutely than on the one when he returned to discover that Mamie had gone; nobody guessed that there were evenings when his loneliness was almost unbearable to the dry, self-contained man--that moments came when he took from a drawer the likeness that had once stood on his desk and yearned over it in despair. That was his secret; pride forbade that he should share it with another. He contemned himself that he did suffer still. A worthless woman should not be mourned. Out of his life should be out of his memory; such weakness shamed him! In August, a week or so after the vacation began, he went to stay at Sandhills. His object in going to Sandhills was not wholly to see his brother, and still less was it to see his sister-in-law. He was solitary, he was wretched, and he was only forty-seven years of age. He had been questioning for some time whether the wisest thing he could do would not be to marry again; he sought no resumption of rapture, but he wanted a home. An estimable wife, perhaps a son, would supply new interests; and the vague question that had entered his mind had latterly been emphasised by his introduction to Miss Pierways, who, he was aware, was now the guest of Lady Heriot. Miss Pierways was the daughter of a lady who had been the Hon. Mrs. Pierways, and whose straitened circumstances had debarred her from the suite in Hampton Court that she might otherwise have had at the period of her husband's death. The widow and the girl had retired to obscure lodgings; the only break in the monotony of the latter's existence being an occasional visit to some connections, or friends, at whose places it was hoped she might form a desirable alliance. The most stringent economies had to be practised in order to procure passable frocks for these visits, but the opportunities had led to no result, though she had beauty. And then an extraordinary event occurred. When the girl was twenty-eight, the widow who, for once, had reluctantly accepted an invitation to accompany her, received an offer of marriage herself, and became the wife of an American who was known to be several times over a millionaire.