up their friendships, meeting perhaps two or three times in the
year, exchanging letters occasionally. He was not a very intimate
friend--indeed, he was not a man who formed intimacies; but he was
a congenial companion enough. He was a frankly ambitious man. He
went to the bar, where he has done well; he married a wife with
some money; and I think his ultimate ambition has been to enter
Parliament. He told me, when I last saw him, that he had now, he
thought, made enough money for this, and that he would probably
stand at the next election. I have always liked his wife, who is a
sensible, good-natured woman, with social ambitions. They live in a
good house in London, in a wealthy sort of way. I arrived to
luncheon, and sate a little while with Mrs. Darell in the drawing-
room. I became aware, while I sate with her, that there was a sense
of anxiety in the air somehow, though she spoke cheerfully enough
of her husband, saying that he had overworked himself, and had to
lie up for a little. When he came into the room I understood. It
was not that he was physically much altered--he is a strongly-built
fellow, with a sanguine complexion and thick curly hair, now
somewhat grizzled; but I knew at the first sight of him that
matters were serious. He was quiet and even cheerful in manner, but
he had a look on his face that I had never seen before, the look of
a man whose view of life has been suddenly altered, and who is
preparing himself for the last long journey. I knew instinctively
that he believed himself a doomed man. He said very little about
himself, and I did not ask him much; he talked about my books, and
a good deal about old friends; but all with a sense, I thought, of
detachment, as though he were viewing everything over a sort of
intangible fence. After luncheon, we adjourned to his study and
smoked. He then said a few words about his illness, and added that
it had altered his plans. "I am told," he said, "that I must take a