He possessed a bright face; his complexion was fair and fresh, his eyes were blue and smiling, his features were good; and as he walked down the road, and momentarily lifted his hat to push his light hair—­as much of a golden colour as hair ever is—­from his brow, and gave a cordial “good-day” to those who met him on their way to work—­few strangers but would have given him a second look of admiration.  A physiognomist might have found fault with the face; and, whilst admitting its sweet expression, would have condemned it for its utter want of resolution.  What of that?  The inability to say “no” to any sort of persuasion, whether for good or ill; in short, a total absence of what may be called moral courage; had been from his childhood Val Elster’s besetting sin.

There was a joke against little Val when he was a boy of seven.  Some playmates had insisted upon his walking into a pond, and standing there.  Poor Val, quite unable to say “no,” walked in, and was nearly drowned for his pains.  It had been a joke against him then; how many such “jokes” could have been brought against him since he grew up, Val himself could alone tell.  As the child had been, so was the man.  The scrapes his irresolution brought him into he did not care to glance at; and whilst only too well aware of his one lamentable deficiency, he was equally aware that he was powerless to stand against it.

People, in speaking of this, called it “Elster’s Folly.”  His extreme sensitiveness as to the feelings of other people, whether equals or inferiors, was, in a degree, one of the causes of this yielding nature; and he would almost rather have died than offer any one a personal offence, an insulting word or look.  There are such characters in the world; none can deny that they are amiable; but, oh, how unfit to battle with life!

Mr. Elster walked slowly through the village on his way to Hartledon, whose inmates he would presently take by surprise.  It was about twenty months since he had been there.  He had left Hartledon at the close of the last winter but one; an appointment having been obtained for him as an attache to the Paris embassy.  Ten months of service, and some scrape he fell into caused him (a good deal of private interest was brought to bear in the matter) to be removed to Vienna; but he had not remained there very long.  He seemed to have a propensity for getting into trouble, or rather an inability to keep out of it.  Latterly he had been staying in London with his brother.

His thoughts wandered to the past as he looked at the chimneys of Hartledon—­all he could see of it—­from the low-lying ground.  He remembered the happy time when they had been children in it; five of them—­the three boys and the two girls—­he himself the youngest and the pet.  His eldest sister, Margaret, had been the first to leave it.  She married Sir James Cooper, and went with him to his remote home in Scotland, where she was still.  The second to go was Laura,