It was the fishing season, and Royal Ainsley made a valuable addition to a party of young men already gathered at his friend's quarters. Five weeks elapsed before the party broke up.
"By this time Eugene's wife must have recovered from her illness," he said, grimly. "If I don't go and see him now, they will probably be getting ready to go off somewhere, and I will miss them."
Suiting the action to the word, Royal Ainsley took the train the next day and arrived at his native village at dusk.
He had taken the precaution to provide himself with a long top-coat and a slouch hat.
He avoided the depot and its waiting-room, lest he should meet some one who might recognize him.
He struck into a side-path, and a sharp walk of some fifteen minutes brought him in sight of the old mansion.
How dark and gloomy the night was! There was no moon, and not a star shone in the heavens.
A short cut across the fields brought him to a little brook. He looked down upon it in silence as it gurgled on sullenly over its rocky bed.
He looked back at the grand old mansion looming up in the distance. And as he looked, he clinched his hands, and the bitterness in his heart became more intense.
"But for Eugene, all that would be mine," he muttered. "He stepped between me and the fortune. When we were boys together, I realized that he would do it, and I hated him—hated him for his suave, winning ways and the love which every one showered on him. He was always lucky."