For the earl, who was by no means a bookish man, had only built that room since his marriage, to please his wife, whom perhaps he loved all the better that she was so exceedingly unlike himself.

Now both were away--their short dream of married life ended, their plans and hopes crumbled into dust.

As yet, no external changes had been made, the other solemn changes having come so suddenly.

Gardeners still worked in the parterres, and masons and carpenters still, in a quiet and lazy manner, went on completing the beautiful room; but there was no one to order them--no one watched their work.

Except for workmen, the place seemed so deserted that Mr.
Cardross wandered through the house for some time before he found a single servant to direct him to the person of whom he was in search.
Mr.Menteith sat alone in a little room filled with guns and fishing rods, and ornamented with stag's heads, stuffed birds, and hunting relics of all sorts, which had been called, not too appropriately, the earl's "study." He was a little, dried-up man, about fifty years old, of sharp but not unkindly aspect.