He was sitting in a low chair beside the hearth, in a stooping attitude, deeply meditative, looking down at some object in his hands. He was so profoundly absorbed as to be unconscious of Dora's presence till she was standing close beside him. The object which so engrossed his attention, which had led his thoughts backward to the faraway past, was a long tress of chestnut hair. He had wound it round his fingers--a smooth, silken tress, which flashed with gleams of gold in the cheery light of the fire. "What beautiful hair!" said Dora gently, as she looked downward from behind his shoulder. "Whose is it, Julian?" "It _was_ my sister's," he answered. "The sister who died so many years ago. Poor Julian! You have been sitting here alone, giving yourself up to sad memories." "I came upon this auburn tress among some old papers just now, while I was looking for Martin's lease." He rolled the hair up quickly, and flung it into the flaming coals. "O Julian, why did you do that?" asked his wife reproachfully. "What is the use of keeping such things, only to perpetuate sorrowful memories? God knows we have enough of our dead. They haunt us and plague us at every stage of life. We cannot get rid of them." The bitterness of his tone jarred upon his wife's ear. "My dearest, you are wearied and out of spirits," she said. "You have worked too long. Were your letters troublesome?" "Not more so than usual, dear. Yes, I am very tired." "And that dreadful event on the line has troubled you. Poor Bothwell is quite upset by it. I am so sorry for you, Julian," said his wife soothingly, leaning upon his shoulder, smoothing back the thick hair from the broad, full brow. "My dear child, there is no reason to be sorry for me. Dreadful events are happening every day, all over the world. We hear of them, and feel how feeble a thing life is under such conditions as those on which we all hold our existence. This evening I happened to be brought face to face with a terrible death. That is all the difference." CHAPTER II. AFTER THE INQUEST. There was great excitement in Bodmin on the afternoon of the inquest; a delicious summer afternoon, which seemed made for quiet arcadian joys; an afternoon to be spent in day-dreams under forest boughs, or drifting lazily adown a placid stream; rather than for gathering together in a stifling tavern-parlour, listening to the droning accents of a police-constable, or the confused statements and innocent prevarications of a railway-porter. But it may be that the inhabitants of Bodmin had drunk their fill of the cup of pastoral joys, that they had had more than enough of heathery moorland and foxglove-bordered lane, dog-rose and honeysuckle, waving boughs and winding streams, and that this satiety made them flock to the little inn beyond Bodmin Road station, where they elbowed and hustled one another in the endeavour to get a good view of the Coroner and the witnesses.