After having parted from his friend, Alec was tempted by the fineness of the evening to go for a solitary ramble into the outskirts of the town, which, in one direction, could almost claim to be termed picturesque. His encounter with Boyd had served to awaken in him thoughts and memories which had long been dormant, but which now for a little while claimed him as their own with a persistency that would not be denied. It was not so much the scenes of his college life that his meeting with Boyd had recalled to visionary existence, but still earlier scenes connected with his life at the Chase. Once more he was a boy by his mother’s side, and felt her caressing hand smooth down his ruffled curls; once more he was pacing the dusky coverts with Martin Rigg, flushing now a covey of young partridges, and now some crusty old pheasant that evidently resented being disturbed; or else he was galloping through the park at a break-neck pace on his shaggy Shetland pony. And then, like some grim spectre, the image of his father came gliding in, and all the happy pictures vanished, as when the dark slide of a magic lantern is suddenly shut down. He came back to the present and its more immediate interests with a sigh. There were several circumstances in his life since they had last met, of which he had hinted nothing to Boyd, and he was grateful to his friend for having forborne to question him more closely, as many men in like circumstances would not have failed to do. For instance, he, Alec, had breathed no syllable having reference to his marriage. That, indeed, was with him a subject about which he could bear to speak to no one, for long before this he had discovered, to his bitter cost, that his marriage was a failure, and that in asking Giovanna Rispani to become his wife he had committed one of the greatest mistakes which it is possible for a man to make. He and his wife had scarcely an interest in common. Giovanna had never really cared for him, but had married him for the sake of his money. To her limited experience, six thousand pounds had represented unbounded riches; for her it meant travel, and fine clothes, and sojourning at big hotels in such cities as Milan, or Paris, or London.