Chapter II: A Retrospect

The canker galls the infants of the spring,
Too oft before their buttons be disclosed,
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
_Hamlet._

God's possible is taught by His world's loving,
And the children doubt of each.
E. B. BROWNING.

How was it that his son was so different from what he had expected? That was the question which continually recurred to Colonel Farrant, as, with all the chilliness of an old Indian, he sat beside the fire that May evening in one of the private sitting-rooms of the Royal Hotel. How was it that the child, whom he remembered as high-spirited, loving, and demonstrative, had become proud, and cold, and repressed? It could not all be owing to the sense of his present disgrace, though that no doubt accounted for it in part; but there was a restless unsatisfied expression, for which the disgrace did not account, and which appeared to be habitual to him. Perhaps, had Colonel Farrant known all the details of his boy's life during the years in which he had been separated from him, he might not have felt so much perplexed.

Donovan had a wonderfully good memory, and, though he had only been three years old when he parted with his father and mother at Malta, he carried away a certain kind of remembrance of them--a dim vision of a mother who always wore pretty dresses, and of a father who was always ready to play with him, and could roar like a bear. With these recollections he set sail for England, and was handed over by the acquaintance who had taken care of him during the voyage to the charge of an elderly woman in black, who was waiting for him when he landed at Southampton. The elderly woman's name was Mrs. Doery, and, as they made their way to the station, she informed Donovan that she was his grandfather's housekeeper, and that he must always do what she told him. Upon this, Donovan looked up at once to scrutinize her face, to judge what sort of things she was likely to tell him to do, and, child though he was, he could see that Mrs. Doery would be no easy mistress. Her long hooked nose and prominent chin were of the nut-cracker order, the corners of her mouth were turned down, her eyes were clear but disagreeably piercing, and her whole aspect, though irreproachably respectable, was, to say the least of it, forbidding. Donovan tried to find some reason for her name, but she was singularly unlike the soft-eyed doe in the animal picture-book; in time, however, he discovered that there was another kind of dough, and thought he quite understood the reason of Mrs. Doery's name then, for her face was exactly of that whitish yellow colour, and, in spite of all remonstrances, he would call her nothing else from that day forth but "Doughy."

Mrs. Doery asserted her authority at once; it was a hot summer's day, and Donovan, as he walked down the platform, complained of thirst, and begged for something to drink. He had caught a glimpse of some of his little acquaintance on board ship standing within the refreshment-room with tumblers of delicious-looking milk in their hands, and this made him feel an uncomfortable craving for some. But Mrs. Doery gave a decided negative--they would be home at his grandfather's in good time for tea; if he was hot, that was the very reason why he should not drink; she was not going to allow bits and snacks between meals, and he had better put such fancies out of his head directly.

Old Mr. Farrant had two houses--Oakdene Manor, a country house which he had built for himself in one of the western counties, and an old family house, standing in the main street of a little country town at no great distance from London. It was to the latter place that Mrs. Doery conducted her little charge on the day of his arrival, for her master had lately had a paralytic stroke, and had given up all thoughts of re-visiting his newly-built house, which, after standing empty for some time, was eventually let to strangers. It was in the old red-brick house, with its narrow windows, and dark rooms, and stately solid old furniture, that Donovan's childhood was to be passed.

And somehow his childhood was not a happy one. He was very lonely, to begin with; there were no children of his own age whom Mrs. Doery thought fit to associate with him; his grandfather, though very fond of him, was too ill and helpless to be his companion; there was no father at hand to play at "bear" with him, and Mrs. Doery, though she was often excessively cross, could not in any other respect imitate that favourite animal of the nursery. Then he had so little to do. Mrs. Doery had at first instructed him daily in the three R's, and he proved very slow with the reading, only tolerable with the writing, but alarmingly quick with the arithmetic. He took to the multiplication-table, as Mrs. Doery expressed it, "like ducks to water;" he answered the questions in the book of mental arithmetic with a lightning speed which fairly baffled the housekeeper, and before he was five years old the longest sum in any of the first four rules would not keep him quiet for more than two minutes. But then certainly by this time he had taken to working problems in his sleep, and would awaken Mrs. Doery in the middle of the night by proclaiming in excited tones that if sheep were 39_s._ each, a flock of forty-five sheep would be worth £87, 15_s._, or some equally abstruse calculation. Mrs. Doery naturally liked to have her nights undisturbed; moreover, she had sense enough to be rather alarmed at this precocity, so she asked the doctor to look at Master Donovan, and the doctor, seeing at once that he was a clever, delicate, excitable child, strongly recommended that all lessons should be stopped till he was seven years old. Mrs. Doery obeyed this injunction strictly, and a time of woe to poor Donovan ensued; "don't do that" seemed to follow everything he attempted. He was not allowed to run about in the nursery, because Mrs. Doery "couldn't abide a noise," or in old Mr. Farrant's room, because "it was unfeeling to his poor grandfather;" if he ventured to make such a thing as a figure everything in the shape of a pencil was at once confiscated, and when he rebelled he was whipped.

For a little while he amused himself by turning the letters in his picture-book into figures and calculating with them, but Mrs. Doery soon found that he was up to no good, and forbade him to open a book without her leave. He was naturally bright and energetic, but he fell now into listless lounging habits, his high spirits breaking forth now and then, and carrying him into all kinds of mischief. He was very self-willed, and his battles with the housekeeper were numerous, but, though his will was quite as strong as hers, he was generally forced into a sort of grudging, resentful submission, for Mrs. Doery had what seemed to him a very unfair advantage in the shape of a stinging lithe cane, and though, when Donovan kicked or struck her, he felt miserable the next moment, she never seemed to feel the least compunction in hurting him, but on the contrary appeared to find a grim satisfaction in his chastisement.

It was all very puzzling, Donovan could not understand it, but then there were so few things he could understand, except the problems about the sheep and such like. Mrs. Doery found him difficult to manage, and therefore told him that he was the worst boy she had ever known, and the more she impressed his badness upon him, the more he felt that for such a bad boy nothing mattered, and the less pains did he take to obey her.

And so the years passed slowly by, and at last in the spring, before Donovan's seventh birthday, old Mr. Farrant had another paralytic stroke and died. Donovan cried a good deal, for though his grandfather had never been able to speak to him, yet he had always looked kindly at him and had seemed pleased that he should come into his room, and the little lonely boy had been thankful for that silent love, and was the truest--perhaps the only true mourner at his grandfather's funeral.

The old house seemed in a sort of dreary excitement all through the week preceding the funeral, and Donovan saw several people whom he had never seen before, among others his father's cousin, Mr. Ellis Farrant, a dark handsome man of eight and twenty, who patronised the little boy considerably, and held his hand while the Burial Service was being read, an indignity which Donovan resented keenly, trying hard to wriggle away from him. In the evening, however, he began to like his new cousin better; the doctor and most of the other guests left early in the afternoon, but Cousin Ellis and the lawyer from London were to stay the night, as they had to look over old Mr. Farrant's papers, a work which did not seem to occupy them very long, for when Donovan went shyly into the library with a message from Mrs. Doery, to know when it would be convenient to them to dine, Ellis Farrant declared that they had looked through everything and would have dinner at once, and then, with the bland, patronising smile which Donovan disliked so much, added that the little boy must certainly stay and dine with them too.

Patronage was unpleasant, but then late dinner downstairs presented great attractions to seven-year-old Donovan, and quite turned the scale in Cousin Ellis's favour. He sat bolt upright in one of the great, slippery leather chairs, so as to make the most of his height, and, though his grief was perfectly sincere, he nevertheless felt a certain melancholy pride in his new black suit, and a delightful sense of dignity and importance in dining with the two gentlemen. The conversation did not interest him at all, excepting once, when he heard his father's name mentioned, and then he listened attentively.

"Captain Farrant appointed you as one of his trustees, I believe," said the lawyer.

"Yes, in the will he made at the time of his marriage, which was the most terse will ever heard of; very little more than, 'All to my wife!'"

"Well, well," said the lawyer, laughing, "though it's against my own interests to say so, it's the concise wills which answer best; and no doubt this little man will be no real loser for receiving his property through his mother."

Donovan grew very sleepy at dessert, and found it difficult to maintain his upright position. The gentlemen sat long over their wine, and he was beginning to wonder drowsily why people eat and drink so much more in the dining-room than in the nursery, when he was roused by hearing his own name.

"Look here, little man"--it was Cousin Ellis who was speaking--"are there any cards in the house?"

"Cards? Oh! yes, lots!" said Donovan, rubbing his eyes. "They came after grandpapa's last stroke, with 'kind inquiries' on them, Mrs. Doery said."

Cousin Ellis and the lawyer laughed heartily.

"Not those cards, but playing-cards, Dono. Didn't I see a card-table in the library?"

But Donovan only looked completely puzzled, and his surprise was great when, on adjourning to the nest room, Ellis Farrant cleared one of the tables of the books and papers which had accumulated on it, and, with the slightest push, turned the top, disclosing in its centre two or three packs of cards. In another minute the whole thing was transformed into a square of green baize, and Cousin Ellis and the lawyer were shuffling the cards for their game. Donovan was not at all sleepy now. He felt all a child's delighted curiosity in something which was new and mysterious, and then, too, what splendid things these would be to calculate with; he wished he had found their hiding-place before.

"Do tell me their names. Do let me watch you," he begged.

And Ellis Farrant, who was in good humour at having found something to while away his dull evening, took the little boy on his knee, and while he played taught him his cards.

To hear once was to remember with Donovan. He not only learnt the names of the cards, but began to understand the principles of the game, and pleaded hard to be allowed to play too. But neither Cousin Ellis nor the lawyer would believe in his capabilities for _écarté_. The lawyer was good-natured, however, and, seeing the grievous disappointment in the little boy's face, suggested that they should let him have a game of _vingt-et-un_, and Cousin Ellis complied, limiting the stakes to threepence, and supplying the penniless Donovan from his own pocket.

Here was excitement indeed! calculation, judgment, memory, all called into action at once! And the little pile of coins before him was growing with magic speed, and _vingt-et-un_ fell to him twice running, and the gentlemen told him laughingly that he was certainly born to win. It ended long before he wished, and Cousin Ellis changed his winnings for him into great bright half-crowns, and he went off to bed proud, and excited, and victorious, to play _vingt-et-un_ in his dreams, only being disturbed now and then by a frightful nightmare of the queen of spades, grown to gigantic proportions, sitting on his chest and stifling him. And so ended Donovan's first introduction to the "_tapis vert_."

The next morning Cousin Ellis and the lawyer left for London, and the child was once more alone. The terrible flatness and depression which he felt that day might have been a lesson to him in after-life, and he never did forget it, although his experience had to be bought more dearly. He wandered drearily over the deserted house, and stole half timidly into the library, and looked again at the magical table, and felt the half-crowns in his pocket. But the fascination and excitement of the previous evening were gone, and, now that the sensation of triumph and victory had died away, he did not greatly care for the money; his head ached, too; the dreary emptiness of the house oppressed him; he began to feel that his grandfather's absence made a great difference to him, and that there was something very forlorn in the idea of being left alone with Mrs. Doery.

As time passed, however, he began to grow accustomed to things, and slipped back into much the same routine as before; meals, walks, and pretty frequent fights with Mrs. Doery, solitary games, fits of wild mischief, whippings, imprisonments, and vague wonder at the perplexities of life. His greatest enjoyment was to steal down into the library, softly to draw aside one of the shutters, and, when quite secure that Mrs. Doery was not likely to interrupt him, to take those wonderful cards from their hiding-place, and, with a dummy adversary, to play the two games of which he had mastered the rules, and various others of his own invention, always playing his adversary's cards with the strictest impartiality.

Another occupation there was too which helped to relieve the tedium of the long days, and this was carpentering. He was very clever with his fingers, and, luckily, the housekeeper did not object much to this pursuit, so long, as she expressed it, "he didn't do no hurt to the carpets or hisself." And Donovan obediently cleared up all his shavings and chips, and bravely endured his cuts and mishaps in silence. He became very expert, and one unfortunate day, when Mrs. Doery had gone out to see a friend, his ambition rose to such a height that he resolved to take the nursery clock to pieces in order to see how it was made, intending, after he had thoroughly mastered the details, to put it together again. So to work he went as soon as the housekeeper was well out of sight, and, with the aid of pincers, screw-drivers, and his dexterous little fingers, succeeded in dissecting the clock. It was wonderfully interesting work, so interesting that, although he was studying the anatomy of the recorder of time, he forgot that there was such a thing as time at all, and that, although the hands of the clock were detached from its face, and the pendulum was lying motionless in his tool-box, the inexorable old gentleman with the scythe was travelling at his usual pace, and bringing tea-time and Mrs. Doery in his train. He had just settled everything entirely to his own mind, and arranged which wheels to re-adjust first, when the door opened; he looked up--and there stood Mrs. Doery with a face of mingled astonishment and wrath which baffles description. It was in vain that Donovan pleaded to be allowed to set it right, and showed how neatly he had arranged the pieces; Mrs. Doery would not listen to a word, but taking the culprit to his room, gave him the severest whipping be had ever had, and Donovan cried piteously, not at all on account of the pain, for he bore that like a little Trojan, but because he was quite sure he could put the clock together again if "Doughy" would only let him.

It was not only by fits of mischief and wilfulness that Donovan gave the housekeeper trouble. Soon after his grandfather's death, he began, as she said, "to plague the very life out of her with questions." What was this? and why was that? and what was the reason of the other? pursued poor Mrs. Doery from morning till night. Taking the doctor's general directions into every detail, she had brought up her little charge in utter ignorance; he knew no more of religion than the veriest little heathen, and, though Mrs. Doery had taught him a short, doggerel prayer to say as he went to sleep, he was much too matter of fact and logical to care to say a charm addressed, as far as he knew, to no one in particular, and for which he could not understand the reason. It did not make him any happier to say

"Three in One, and One in Three,
One in Three, save me."

It only puzzled him completely, so he left off saying it.

But the service at his grandfather's funeral had awakened his curiosity; he could not understand it, and he could not bear not being able to understand. Mrs. Doery found herself obliged to give an answer now and then in order to quiet him, and Donovan learnt that people knelt down to "ask God for things," that "God was a Being who loved good people and hated bad people," and that "grandpapa had gone to heaven."

"Why, that's what you always say when you're surprised!" he exclaimed, when this last piece of information had been received. "'Good heaven'! you know. Is heaven a great surprise? What is heaven?"

"It's a nice place where good folk go," said Mrs. Doery, as if she grudged the admission.

"Is it in India?"

"Dear heart! The ignorance of the child! No, it's up in the sky."

"What do they do up there?"

"Sit and sing hymns and say prayers."

"What, like they did at the funeral?"

"Bless the child, I don't know; but you needn't trouble so about it, for it's only good boys as goes there."

"I don't want to, I'm sure," said Donovan, defiantly. "I hate sitting still."

But his mind was not satisfied, and Mrs. Doery was questioned still further.

"Doughy, what did they mean when they said grandpapa would never be ill again?"

"Why, folks never are ill in heaven."

"What, never? Oh! that is another reason, then, why I don't want to go there, for the nicest time I ever had was when I'd the measles; you never were so little cross in your life, Doughy." Mrs. Doery made no comment on this, and the little boy continued, rather anxiously, "I suppose, Doughy, you are very good, aren't you?"

"Well, Master Donovan, I try to do my duty by the house, and by you," said Doery, gloomily.

"That's a good thing!" said Donovan, relieved, "for you see, Doughy, I don't think we'd better go to the same place, we should be happier away from each other."

Mrs. Doery was wonderfully uncommunicative, but still the little boy occasionally plied her with fresh questions. One day he came to her with a perplexity which had long been troubling him.

"Doughy, who gives us homes?"

"Your papa, of course, Master Donovan."

"And who gave papa his home?"

"Why, your poor grandpapa."

"But who gave the first papa there ever was his home?"

"Bless the child! how should I know'? I don't suppose Adam had no home, so to speak."

"Why are some people's homes so much happier than other people's? It's very unfair."

"The good little boys are happy," said Mrs. Doery, "and the bad ones aren't."

"Then, if I was never naughty, should I have a nice home like little Tom Harris, with a mother to take me out with her."

"That's impossible to say," replied Mrs. Doery, gravely; "let alone the unlikeliness that you ever would be good, you see there's all them past times you was naughty; so you've not much of a chance."

Poor Donovan went away sadly, and yet with a great sense of injustice in his childish mind. That was almost the last question he troubled Mrs. Doery with.

But, though he was represented as so incurably bad, he would not entirely bow to Mrs. Doery's opinion. In his heart of hearts he cherished an ideal mother, who was to come back from India, make him good, and fill his life with happiness; she was to be just like Mrs. Harris, the grocer's wife, who took her little boy out walking, only her dresses were to be prettier, for the one thing he remembered about his mother was that she always wore pretty clothes. The events of his life were the arrival of the Indian letters, in which "papa and mamma sent their love to Dono;" but these were few and far between, for, although Mrs. Doery wrote each mail to give an account of Master Donovan's well-being, neither Colonel Farrant nor his wife understood the importance of keeping their memory green in the remembrance of their child by writing to him. The Colonel was absorbed in his work, Mrs. Farrant was absorbed in herself. Donovan had his ideal mother, nevertheless, and would rehearse her return, and talk to her by the hour; and, when Mrs. Doery took him for his walk, he would put his hand a little out on the side away from the housekeeper, making believe that his mother held it, and would turn his face up, as if he were talking to her, just as he had seen little Torn Harris do.

At last one never-to-be-forgotten day Donovan heard that he had a little baby sister, and before the novelty and delight of this news had had time to fade came a second letter with yet more wonderful tidings, a large letter for Mrs. Doery, and a little one enclosed for Donovan from his father--"Mamma and baby were coming to England to live with Dono, and he must take great care of them, and try to make them happy."

Never had the little boy known such intense happiness, his dream was actually coming true, mother was coming, mother who would not mind answering his questions, who would make him good, who would rescue him from Mrs. Doery's whippings; he could watch the grocer's little boy now when he passed by without the least shade of envy, for in a few weeks would not he too be walking out with his mother?

He watched the preparations which were being made in the house with a sense of exultant happiness, his grave quiet step changed to the bounding skipping pace of a merry child, and he was so good that even Mrs. Doery had no complaint to make of him. Then at length came the real day of arrival, and Donovan's feverish impatience was at length rewarded; a carriage stopped at the door, Mrs. Doery, smoothing her black apron, bustled out into the hall, and Donovan rushed headlong down the white steps to throw his arms round his mother's neck. But a sudden chill of disappointment fell on his heart, it was so different from everything he had planned. The tall pretty-looking lady stooped to kiss him, indeed, and her voice was soft and refined, if somewhat languid, as she exclaimed, "Dear me! what a great boy you have grown!" but it was not his ideal at all, not the mother to whom he could tell everything, or who would care to know. All this Donovan read in almost the first glance, as clearly as he had read Mrs. Doery's character on Southampton Pier.

He followed everyone else into the house and shut the door, Mrs. Farrant was already on the way to her room, and did not notice him any further, and he was too bewildered and disappointed to care to bestow more than a glance on the ayah and the little baby in long clothes.

By-and-by, he saw his mother again, but by this time he had grown shy, and only made the briefest responses to her questions, and before long she had disposed herself on the drawing-room sofa with a book, and he was left standing at a little distance with a Calcutta costume doll which she had just given him, and a very heavy heart. The doll only added to his disappointment. Surely the ideal mother would have understood how little he, a boy of eight years old, would care for a doll? He did not want presents at all, he wanted the dream-mother back again, and the conviction that she never could come back again was terrible indeed. It got worse and worse as the evening advanced, and at last he could bear it no longer, but, wishing his mother good night, crept upstairs though it was not yet his bed time, and shutting himself into the cupboard among Mrs. Doery's dresses gave vent to his misery. He did not often cry, even at the severest whipping, but that night he sobbed as though his heart would break; life had seemed hard and perplexing already, and now his ideal was gone!

But the loving hand which was guiding Donovan, though he so little knew it, was not going to leave him desolate. The perfectly loving sympathetic mother had indeed been denied him, but another treasure had been provided for him, which though it could not fill entirely the place of the dethroned ideal--the place which was to be always empty, always longing to be filled--was yet to call out his best and strongest feelings.

When at last he checked his sobs and crept out of the cupboard once more, the first thing his eyes rested on was the new baby sister lying asleep in her cradle. He was so miserable that he would even have thrown himself on Mrs. Doery's mercy if she had been there, and in another minute his tears broke forth again, as he pressed his face close to the baby's and told her all his trouble. Of course she woke directly, but he still sobbed out his story.

"Oh! baby, I'm so miserable--so miserable--mother isn't a bit what I expected."

The baby began to cry feebly, and Donovan, penitent at having disturbed her, took her with great care and difficulty from her cradle, and began to rock her in his arms, and as she slept once more, and as her weight became more and more difficult to bear, a new sense of love and protecting care sprang up in the little boy's heart, and he was comforted. Before long Mrs. Doery's step was heard without, and Donovan knew that if he were found he would certainly be whipped, but to try to put the baby back in the cradle would be sure to wake her, and she was worth suffering for.

Mrs. Doery was of course wrathful, and poor Donovan went to bed supperless and sore both inwardly and outwardly; but, as his wistful eyes closed on that day of disappointment, he clung to his one comforting thought, the little sister, his new possession.

As time passed on, the bond between these two grew stronger and stronger. Donovan centred all the love of his heart on the frail little life of the baby. The element of protection was his most pronounced characteristic; he was strong, and liked above all things to have something to take care of. And Dot, as they called the tiny delicate little girl, needed any amount of attention. From the very first everything seemed against her; her Indian birth, the trying voyage, the want of any real care from her mother, the miserable mismanagement of an incompetent doctor, all told grievously on the delicate little child. She had only just learnt to walk, or rather to trust herself to be piloted along by Donovan, when she began to pine and dwindle, and before long the hesitating footsteps were hushed for ever, and Dot lay down upon the couch on which her little life-drama was to be acted. A fall from her ayah's arms had, it was supposed, been the cause of the hip-disease which now declared itself. For a time everyone was sorry and disturbed, but soon they became resigned, and talked about "the dispensations of Providence." Only Donovan nursed his sorrow and indignation apart, conscious, in spite of his youth, that it was human carelessness, human misunderstanding, which had ruined the only life he cared for.

In the meantime, the lease of Oakdene Manor came to an end, and Mrs. Farrant and her children left the house where Donovan's childhood had been passed, to make their home in that place which old Mr. Farrant had planned so carefully, but had never seen.

The change was in some respects good for Donovan; he was just old enough to take an interest in the property which would, he supposed, be his own some day, and he liked the free country life. But in that comfortable English home, the apparent model of refinement and propriety, he grew up somehow into a very unsatisfactory mortal, unsatisfactory to himself as well as to others. He was scarcely to be blamed perhaps, for, with the exception of little Dot, there was not one good influence in the Manor household.

His mother's intense selfishness was perfectly apparent to him; he accepted it now with a sort of cold indifference when it only affected himself. It was so, and there was an end of the matter; he just put up with it. But, when Mrs. Farrant's entire absorption in self affected Dot, Donovan's indignation was always roused; there was an almost fierce gleam in his eyes when he found Dot suffering from the unmotherliness which had chilled and cramped his own life.

What, however, told most fatally on him was his mother's conventional religion. Mrs. Farrant went to church because it was proper, and insisted on her son's accompanying her. He obeyed, but went with a sort of stubborn disgust, hating to share in this act of hypocrisy. He was naturally acute, and at a very early age he found out that the lives of all the professing Christians around him were diametrically opposed to the principles of Christianity. It was all a hideous mockery, a hollow profession; even as a child he came to the sweeping conclusion, "They are all shams, these Christian people," and naturally went on to the resolution, "I at least will profess nothing."

His views received a sort of amused encouragement from his tutor, a man whom Mrs. Farrant had been delighted to secure for her son, because he was "so highly connected, such a very gentlemanly man." Mr. Alleyne was, however, in spite of his high connections, entirely unfit to be the tutor of a boy like Donovan. He was clever, but shallow, and he had dabbled in science, and rather prided himself on being able to appreciate the difficulties which great minds found in reconciling the new discoveries of science and the old faiths. He quoted Tyndall and Huxley with great aptness, and, though on occasion he was quite capable of appearing to be exceedingly orthodox, yet he was rather fond of styling himself an Agnostic when quite sure of his audience. He was not a sincere man; he liked talking of his "intellectual difficulties," and regarded scepticism as "not bad form now-a-days." When Mr. Alleyne found that his pupil was, as he termed it, "a thorough-going young atheist," he was a little amused and a good deal interested. He was not at all unwilling to forsake the more ordinary routine, and, throwing aside the classics, he allowed Donovan to devote most of his time to scientific subjects, which were far more interesting to both teacher and pupil.

Donovan had no respect for his tutor, but he was a good deal influenced by him. When by his father's desire he was sent at last to a public school, he was just in the state to derive all the evil and none of the good from school life. He had grown up in isolation, and he was naturally reserved, so that he did not easily make friends, and he was too wilful and incomprehensible to be a favourite with the masters. In mathematics, indeed, he could beat every opponent with ease, and carried off several prizes, but his success was merely that of natural talent, and never of industry, so that even to himself it brought little satisfaction.

And all the time slowly strengthening and developing was the intense love of play which had shown itself in his earliest childhood. Ellis Farrant had crossed his path several times since their first meeting, and Donovan, though he did not like his cousin, always enjoyed his visits, for then his passion could be gratified, and his monotonous and already unsatisfying life could be broken by the most delicious of all excitements.

Later on came the temptation at school; the suggestion made by a weaker and more timid boy was carried out unscrupulously by Donovan, his conscience completely overmastered by the thirst for self-gratification. Then followed exposure, disgrace, some injustice, and a most bitter humiliation.

His school-days were abruptly ended. What was now to become of him?