It was the industrious Martin, home once again.  After his difference with Blanchard, the antiquary left Devon for another tour in connection with his work, and had devoted the past six months to study of prehistoric remains in Guernsey, Herm, and other of the Channel Islands.

Before departing, he had finally regained his brother’s friendship, though the close fraternal amity of the past appeared unlikely to return between them.  Now John recognised Martin, and his first impulse produced pleasure, while his second was one of irritation.  He felt glad to see his brother; he experienced annoyance that Martin should thus return to Chagford and not call immediately at the Red House.

“Hullo!  Home again!  I suppose you forgot you had a brother?”

“John, by all that’s surprising!  Forget?  Was it probable?  Have I so many flesh-and-blood friends to remember?  I arrived yesterday and called on you this morning, only to find you were at Drewsteignton; so I came to verify some figures at the cromlech, hoping we might meet the sooner.”

He was beside his brother by this time, and they shook hands over the hedge.

“I’ll leave the ladder and walk by you and have a chat.”

“It’s too hot to ride at a walk.  Come you here to Bradmere Pool.  We can lie down in the shade by the water, and I’ll tether my horse for half an hour.”

Five minutes later the brothers sat under the shadow of oaks and beeches at the edge of a little tarn set in fine foliage.

“Pleasant to see you,” said Martin.  “And looking younger I do think.  It’s the open air.  I’ll wager you don’t get slimmer in the waist-belt though.”

“Yes, I’m all right.”

“What’s the main interest of life for you now?”

John reflected before answering.

“Not quite sure.  Depends on my mood.  Just been buying a greyhound bitch at Drewsteignton.  I’m going coursing presently.  A kennel will amuse me.  I spend most of my time with dogs.  They never change.  I turn to them naturally.  But they overrate humanity.”

“Our interests are so different.  Yet both belong to the fresh air and the wild places remote from towns.  My book is nearly finished.  I shall publish it in a year’s time, or even less.”

“Have you come back to stop?”

“Yes, for good and all now.”

“You have found no wife in your wanderings?”

“No, John.  I shall never marry.  That was a dark spot in my life, as it was in yours.  We both broke our shins over that.”

“I broke nothing—­but another man’s bones.”

He was silent for a moment, then proceeded abruptly on this theme.

“The old feeling is pretty well dead though.  I look on and watch the man ruining himself; I see his wife getting hard-faced and thin, and I wonder what magic was in her, and am quite content.  I wouldn’t kick him a yard quicker to the devil if I could.  I watch him drift there.”