After Ethel Thursby’s refusal of him on her eighteenth birthday he went back with a sad heart to his duties at Withington Chase. There he had rooms in the house of Mr. Kinaby, the land steward, an old red brick house situated a little way outside the precincts of the park. Mr. Kinaby’s health had been failing for some time, and Everard was gradually taking over the greater part of his duties. Every morning he went to the Chase to see to Sir Gilbert’s correspondence and take his instructions in reference to the estate and other matters. But he had still other duties to attend to. In addition to being a numismatist of some note and a collector of curios, Sir Gilbert of late years had developed into an antiquarian and archæologist, and for some time past had been engaged in putting together the framework of what he intended ultimately to elaborate into an exhaustive history of the “hundred” of the county in which the Chase was situated, as natives of which his ancestors for three centuries back had played more or less conspicuous parts. In furtherance of this labour of love, for such it was to him, he found Everard very useful in the way of hunting up authorities, making extracts and transcribing his notes into a calligraphy which it would be possible for a compositor to set up—when, at some as yet unknown date, the great work should be sufficiently advanced to be sent to press—without having to tear his hair in the process. Sir Gilbert, whom advancing years had tended to render more of a recluse than ever, had gradually, and by a process of which he himself was scarcely conscious, begun to entertain a great liking (in his frigid, undemonstrative way) for this frank-eyed, clear-headed, straightforward young man, in whom he could detect no faintest trace of sycophancy, and who knew so well how to retain the full measure of his own self-respect without in any way grating against the _amour-propre_ of his employer. Lisle had evolved a happy faculty of managing the lonely cantankerous old man, for whom he often felt a profound pity, as no one before had ever succeeded in managing him. Thus it had come to pass that a week never went by without Everard being asked to dine once, and frequently oftener, at the Chase. On these occasions, when dinner was over, the old man and the young one would wind up the evening by playing a few sober games of chess or backgammon, at both of which Sir Gilbert was an adept. By the time the turret clock struck ten, Everard would be strolling back through the park in the direction of his rooms, with no company save a cigar and his own thoughts. At such seasons, with the fresh night air blowing about him, with the stars raining down sweet influences upon him, and with the huge ghost-like trees to sentinel him on his way, whither ought a young man’s thoughts to wing their flight save to the one fair being, fairer to him than all the world beside, who holds captive his heart, a willing prisoner!