They were not large: a prayer-book bound in morocco, her own, with her name on the fly-leaf and a short inscription beneath, and in the pocket of its cover a lock of auburn hair tied round with silk.
"An unlucky gift," said Leonard to himself; then putting on his coat, which was yet warm from Jane's shoulders, he also turned and vanished into the snow and the night, shaping his path towards the village inn.
He reached it in due course, and passed into the little parlour that adjoined the bar.

It was a comfortable room enough, notwithstanding its adornments of badly stuffed birds and fishes, and chiefly remarkable for its wide old-fashioned fireplace with wrought-iron dogs.

There was no lamp in the room when Leonard entered, but the light of the burning wood was bright, and by it he could see his brother seated in a high-backed chair gazing into the fire, his hand resting on his knee.
Thomas Outram was Leonard's elder by two years and cast in a more fragile mould.

His face was the face of a dreamer, the brown eyes were large and reflective, and the mouth sensitive as a child's.

He was a scholar and a philosopher, a man of much desultory reading, with refined tastes and a really intimate knowledge of Greek gems.
"Is that you, Leonard ?" he said, looking up absently; "where have you been ?" "To the Rectory," answered his brother.
"What have you been doing there ?" "Do you want to know ?" "Yes, of course.