I am disposed to think that never before did a sincere friendship, one which was fated to last unbroken for years, so quickly as that between Carriston and myself. As I now look back I find it hard to associate him with any, even a brief, period of time subsequent to our meeting, during which he was not my friend. I forget whether our meeting at the same spot on the morning which followed our self-introduction was the result of accident or arrangement. Anyway, we spent the day together, and that day was the of many passed in each other’s society. Morning after morning we sallied to do our best to transfer the same bits of scenery to our -blocks. Evening after evening we returned to dine side by side, and to talk and smoke together, indoors or outdoors as the temperature advised or our wishes inclined.  
Great friends we soon became—inseparable as long as my short holiday lasted. It was, perhaps, pleasant for each to work in company with an amateur like himself. Each could ask the other’s opinion of the merits of the work done, and feel happy at the approval duly given. An artist’s standard of is too high for a non-professional. When he praises your work he praises it but as the work of an outsider. You feel that such commendation it and disheartens you.
 
However, had Carriston cared to do so, I think he might have fearlessly submitted his productions to any critic. His drawings were immeasurably more and powerful than mine. He had great talent, and I was much surprised to find that good as he was at landscape, he was even better at the figure. He could, with a firm, bold hand draw rapidly the most marvellous likenesses. So spirited and true were some of the studies he showed me, that I could without flattery advise him, provided he could finish as he began, to keep to the higher branch of the art. I have now before me a series of outline faces by him—many of them from memory; and as I look at them the original of each comes at once before my eyes.
 
From the very first I had been much interested in the young man, and as day by day went by, and the of his character were revealed to me, my interest grew deeper and deeper. I flatter myself that I am a keen observer and of personal character, and until now fancied that to write a description of its parts was an easy matter. Yet when I am put to the proof I find it no simple task to convey in words a proper idea of Charles Carriston’s mental organization.
 
I soon discovered that he was, I may say, by a peculiarly sensitive nature. Although strong[205] and in good health, the very changes of the weather seemed to affect him almost to the same extent as they affect a flower. Sweet as his always was, the tone of his mind, his spirits, his conversation, , as it were, with the atmosphere. He was full of imagination, and that imagination, always rich, was at times , even weird. Not for one moment did he seem to doubt the stability of the wild theories he started, or the possibility of the dreams he dreamed being realized. He had his faults, of course; he was hasty and ; indeed to me one of the greatest charms about the boy was that, right or wrong, each word he came straight from his heart.
 
So far as I could judge, the whole organization of his mind was too highly strung, too finely for every-day use. A note of joy, of sorrow, even of pity vibrated through it too strongly for his comfort or . As yet it had not been called upon to bear the test of love, and fortunately—I use the word advisedly—fortunately he was not, according to the usual significance of the word, a religious man, or I should have thought it not unlikely that some day he would fall a victim to that religious so well known to my professional brethren, and have developed hysteria or melancholia. He might even have fancied himself a messenger sent from heaven for the regeneration of mankind. From natures like Carriston’s are prophets made.
 
In short, I may say that my exhaustive study of my new friend’s character resulted in a certain amount of uneasiness as to his future—an uneasiness not entirely free from professional curiosity.
 
Although the smile came readily and frequently to his lips, the general of his disposition was sad, even and . And yet few young men’s lives promised to be so pleasant as Charles Carriston’s.
 
I was rallying him one day on his future rank and its responsibilities.
 
“You will, of course, be disgustingly rich?” I said.
 
Carriston sighed. “Yes, if I live long enough; but I don’t suppose I shall.”
 
“Why in the world shouldn’t you? You look pale and thin, but are in capital health. Twelve long miles we have walked to-day—you never turned a hair.”
 
Carriston made no reply. He seemed in deep thought.
 
“Your friends ought to look after you and get you a wife,” I said.
 
“I have no friends,” he said sadly. “No nearer relation than a cousin a good deal older than I am, who looks upon me as one who was born to rob him of what should be his.”
 
“But by the law of primogeniture, so sacred to the upper ten thousand, he must know you are entitled to it.”
 
“Yes; but for years and years I was always going to die. My life was not thought worth six months’ purchase. All of a sudden I got well. Ever since then I have seemed, even to myself, a kind of interloper.”
 
“It must be unpleasant to have a man for one’s death. All the more reason you should marry, and put other lives between him and the title.”
 
“I fancy I shall never marry,” said Carriston, looking at me with his soft dark eyes. “You see, a boy[207] who has waited for years expecting to die, doesn’t grow up with exactly the same feelings as other people. I don’t think I shall ever meet a woman I can care for enough to make my wife. No, I expect my cousin will be Sir Ralph yet.”
 
I tried to laugh him out of his morbid ideas. “Those who live will see,” I said. “Only promise to ask me to your wedding, and better still, if you live in town, appoint me your family doctor. It may prove the of that West End practice which it is the dream of every doctor to establish.”
 
I have already to the strange beauty of Carriston’s dark eyes. As soon as companionship commenced between us those eyes became to me, from scientific reasons, objects of curiosity on account of the mysterious expression which at times I detected in them. Often and often they wore a look the like to which, I imagine, is found only in the eyes of a somnambulist—a look which one feels certain is intently upon something, yet upon something beyond the range of one’s own vision. During the first two or three days of our new-born , I found this of Carriston’s startling. When now and then I turned to him, and found him staring with all his might at nothing, my eyes were compelled to follow the direction in which his own were bent. It was at first impossible to one’s self of the belief that something should be there to so fixed a gaze. However, as the rapid ............