For one door that had been ajar to the daughter of the Hon. Mrs. Pierways, with nothing but her birth and her appearance to recommend her, a hundred doors flew open to the step-daughter of Henry Van Buren; and it was shortly after the startling metamorphosis in the fortunes of the pair that Heriot had first met them. The dowry that Agnes Pierways might bring to her husband weighed with him very little, for he was in a position to disregard such considerations. But Miss Pierways' personality appeared to him suggestive of all the qualifications that he sought in the lady whom he should marry. Without her manner being impulsive or girlish, she was sufficiently young to be attractive. She was handsome, and in a slightly statuesque fashion that bore promise of the serenity which he told himself was now his aim. Certainly if he did re-marry--and he was contemplating the step very seriously--it would be difficult to secure a partner to fulfil his requirements more admirably than Miss Pierways. Whether he fulfilled hers, he could ascertain when he had fully made up his mind. It was with the intention of making up his mind, in proximity to the lady, that he had gone to Sandhills; and one evening, when he was alone in the smoking-room with his brother, the latter blundered curiously enough on to the bull's-eye of his meditations. "I wonder," said Sir Francis, "that you've never thought of re-marrying, George?" "My experience of matrimony was not fortunate," answered Heriot, smoking slowly, but with inward perturbation. "Your experience of matrimony was a colossal folly. All things considered, the consequences might easily have been a good deal worse." "I don't follow you." "Between ourselves, the end never seemed to me so regrettable as you think it." "My wife left me." "And you divorced her! And you have no children." "If I had had children," said Heriot musingly, "it is a fact that the consequences would have been worse." "But in any case," said the Baronet, "it was a huge mistake. Really one may be frank, in the circumstances! You married madly. The probability is that if your wife had been--if you were living together still, you would be a miserable man to-day. It was a very lamentable affair, of course, when it happened, but regarding it coolly--in looking back on it--don't you fancy that perhaps things are just as well as they are?" "I was very fond of my wife," replied Heriot, engrossed by his cigar. "To an extent," said Sir Francis indulgently, "no doubt you had an affection for her. But, my dear fellow, what companionship had you? Was she a companion?" "I don't know." "Was she interested in your career? Could she understand your ways of thought? Was she used to your world? One doesn't ask a great deal of women, but had you any single thing in common?" "I don't know," said Heriot again. Sir Francis shrugged his shoulders.