But the bestowal of benefits, whilst it may beautify the giver, does not always transform itself into the one benefit desired and console the bestower! Bulstrode had a charming home. He was alone in it. He had his clubs where bachelors like himself, more or less infected with Christmas gloom, would be glad to greet him. He had his friends, many of them, and their home circles were complete. His, by force of circumstances, began and ended with himself, and as if triumphant to have found so tempting a victim, the gloom came and possessed Bulstrode as he sat and mused. But the decided sadness that stole across his face bore no relation, to the season, to whose white mystery and holy beauty there was something in his boyish, kindly heart that always responded. The sadness Mrs. Falconer's letter awakened would not sleep. What his Christmas _might_ be...! He had only to order his motor, to call for her and drive over the ferry; to sit beside her in the train, to drive with her again across the wintry roads. He had but to see her, watch her, talk with her, share with her the day and evening, to have his Christmas as nearly what a feast should be as dreams could ask. The whole festival was there: joy, good-will--peace? No. Not peace for him or for her--not that; everything else, but not that. And he had been travelling for five weary months in order to make himself keep for her that peace a little longer. Bulstrode sighed here, lifted the letter where there was more of it to his lips--held it out toward the fire as if the red jewels were to set themselves around it, thought differently, and putting it back in its envelope, thrust it in the pocket of his waistcoat. "Ruggles," he asked the servant who had come in, "you sent the despatch to Tuxedo?" "Yes, sir." "There'll be later a note to send. I'll ring. Well, what is it?" "There's a person at the door, sir, who insists on seeing you." The servant's tone--one particularly jarring to the ears of a man who had fellowship with more than one class of his kind--made the master look sharply up. Ruggles was a new addition to the household, and Bulstrode did not like him. "A person," Bulstrode repeated, quietly; "what sort of a person?" "A man, sir." "Not a gentleman? No," he nodded gently; "I see you do not think him one. Yet that he is a man is in his favor. There are some gentlemen who aren't men, you know. Let him in." In doing so Ruggles seemed to let in the night. Bulstrode had, in the warmth of his fragrant room, forgotten that outside was the wintry dark. Ruggles, in letting the man in, had the air of thrusting him in, and shut the door behind the visitor with a click.