"Some of them don't lie so very far from the surface, Walter," he
said. "There is one"--he took out his watch--"there is one which, if
you like, I will tell you about. I have just ten minutes."
"Good!"
"Go ahead, Lovell, old chap!"
"Have a drink first!"
He held out his hand. They were all silent. He stood up amongst them,
by far the tallest man there, with his back to the chimney piece, and
his eyes still lingering about that calendar.
"Thirteen years ago," he said, "two young men--call them by their
Christian names, Wingrave and Lumley--shared a somewhat extensive
hunting box in Leicestershire. They were both of good family, well
off, and fairly popular, Lumley the more so perhaps. He represented
the ordinary type of young Englishman, with a stronger dash than usual
of selfishness. Wingrave stood for other things. He was reticent and
impenetrable. People called him mysterious."
Lovell paused for a moment to refill his pipe. The sudden light upon
his face, as he struck a match, seemed to bring into vivid prominence
something there, indescribable in words, yet which affected his
hearers equally with the low gravity of his speech. The man himself
was feeling the tragedy of the story he told.
"They seemed," he continued, "always to get on well together, until
they fell in love with the same woman. Her name we will say was Ruth.
She was the wife of the Master of Hounds with whom they hunted.
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