A thousand incidents of ready courage in past sport and travel were forgotten, and on this single slip the terrible indictment was founded.

And the reason is at hand; this weakness had at last drawn near to his life's great passion.
He found a deserted house, but its solitude was too noisy for his unrest.

Bidding the butler tell his friends that he had gone up the hill, he crossed the sloping lawns and plunged into the thicket of rhododendrons.

Soon he was out on the heather, with the great slopes, scorched with the heat, lying still and fragrant before him.

He felt sick and tired, and flung himself down amid the soft brackens.
It was the man's first taste of bitter mental anguish.