"I'll ride over there to-morrow morning, and have a look at this queer
old house. You might give me the names of any other farms you know about
this neighbourhood, and their occupants."

This the landlord was very ready to do. He ran over the names of from ten
to fifteen places, which Gilbert jotted down upon a leaf of his
pocket-book, afterwards planning his route upon the map of the county
which he carried for his guidance. He set put early the next morning
under a low gray sky, with clouds in the distance that threatened rain.
The road from the little market-town to Crosber possessed no especial
beauty. The country was flat and uninteresting about here, and needed
the glory of its summer verdure to brighten and embellish it. But Mr.
Fenton did not give much thought to the scenes through which he went at
this time; the world around and about him was all of one colour--the
sunless gray which pervaded his own life. To-day the low dull sky and the
threatening clouds far away upon the level horizon harmonised well with
his own thoughts--with the utter hopelessness of his mind.
Hopelessness!--yes, that was the word. He had hazarded all upon this one
chance, and its failure was the shipwreck of his life. The ruin was
complete. He could not build up a new scheme of happiness. In the full
maturity of his manhood, his fate had come to him. He was not the kind of
man who can survive the ruin of his plans, and begin afresh with other
hopes and still fairer dreams. It was his nature to be constant. In all
his life he had chosen for himself only one friend--in all his life he
had loved but one woman.

He came to the little village, with its low sloping-roofed cottages,
whose upper stories abutted upon the road and overshadowed the casements
below; and where here and there a few pennyworths of gingerbread, that
seemed mouldy with the mould of ages, a glass pickle-bottle of