The place, though not at Land's End, must yet not be so near London that a fellow would be tempted to be always going to town.

It seemed to him amazing that he now had it within his power to achieve what had always been his ideal.

But when he had acquired exactly the kind of place he wanted to find, what those whom he had set seeking for him had assured him with such flattering and eager earnestness he would very soon discover--what then?
Did he mean to live there alone?
He thought yes, for he did not now feel drawn to marriage.
As a boy--it now seemed aeons of years ago--it had been far otherwise.

But Betty Tosswill had been very young, only nineteen, and when he had fallen on evil days she had thrown him over in obedience to her father's strongly expressed wish.

He had suffered what at the time seemed a frightful agony, and he had left England full of revolt and bitterness.
But to-day, when the knowledge that he was so soon going to Beechfield brought with it a great surge of remembrance, he could not honestly tell himself that he was sorry.