described her to his old aunt, and asked who she might be, to learn
that she was Ida de la Molle (which sounded like a name out of a
novel), the only daughter of the old squire who lived at Honham
Castle. Next day he had left for India, and saw Miss de la Molle no
more.

And now he wondered what had become of her. Probably she was married;
so striking a person would be almost sure to attract the notice of
men. And after all what could it matter to him? He was not a marrying
man, and women as a class had little attraction for him; indeed he
disliked them. It has been said that he had never married, and never
even had a love affair since he was five-and-twenty. But though he was
not married, he once--before he was five-and-twenty--very nearly took
that step. It was twenty years ago now, and nobody quite knew the
history, for in twenty years many things are fortunately forgotten.
But there was a history, and a scandal, and the marriage was broken
off almost on the day it should have taken place. And after that it
leaked out in the neighbourhood that the young lady, who by the way
was a considerable heiress, had gone off her head, presumably with
grief, and been confined in an asylum, where she was believed still to
remain.

Perhaps it was the thought of this one woman's face, the woman he had
once seen walking down the drift, her figure limned out against the
stormy sky, that led him to think of the other face, the face hidden
in the madhouse. At any rate, with a sigh, or rather a groan, he swung
himself round from the gate and began to walk homeward at a brisk
pace.

The drift that he was following is known as the mile drift, and had in