It was a big outlook, and the owner of French’s Court was a very small incident of the foreground, as he stood on the terrace and watched the fishing-boats creeping out in the raw, grey calm to the solitudes beyond the horizon. A portmanteau and a gun-case stood on the steps of the hall door, and a brown retriever was moving nervously round the gun-case, hurrying from it now and again to thrust her curly head into Hugh’s hand, and beseech him with her amber eyes not to leave her behind. Every dog believed in Hugh, and told him so by the varied and untiring dog methods, but now, with that restless and aching reference of all things to one subject, Hugh gave his hand to the innocent homage with the feeling that every one except his dog had found him out. His wife knew it, Bunbury knew it, he writhed under their tact when they avoided all discussion of his part in the run that the Silver Fox had given them; he detected with agony the consideration that prompted Lady Susan’s gallant efforts to talk on subjects unconnected with horses. He could have found it in his heart to swear at her and tell her she need not take so much trouble; he would have liked to quarrel with Bunbury and show him which was the pluckier man; he dwelt on the thought with pitiful, childish intensity, and drove his heel into the gravel, half knowing himself to be pitiful and childish. There are junctures in a life when deficiency of intellect may disastrously alter the moral balance, and the smaller mind may have need of supreme and heroic effort to attain the philosophy or even the sanity that are easy to stronger intelligences. All Hugh’s native good-feeling was not enough to avail him when he remembered his wife’s figure up against the sky on the top of the stone-faced bank, while he turned and made for the byways and highways that had been his portion throughout the day. Passionate admiration, turning to passionate jealousy of her flawless courage, and self-contempt, and knowledge that his eyes would never again meet hers without consciousness of failure; all these because a good little average man had but two ideas in his life, and when one was taken from him, the other sickened like a poisoned thing. The slow beat of a horse’s hoofs became audible on the avenue, and a sombre vehicle, that was half brougham and half cab, emerged from the trees into the open. Its coachman had a long red beard, a frieze coat, and a hat with a silver cord round it; the horse was white and shaggy, the wheels of the brougham turned in as if it were bandy-legged. Hugh recognized the equipage of his Uncle Charles, and stationed himself at the hall door to receive it. “It’s awfully good of you to come, Slaney,” he said, with an effort at his wonted geniality. “Such short notice too. I didn’t know that I was going to this shoot till I got in from hunting the day before yesterday.”