Redmond Maynard stood at the dining-room window gazing at the deep-dyed reflection upon the snow of the blood-red setting sun. The leafless trees, with their gnarled trunks and gaunt, twisted branches, spreading fiercely in imprecation at the hardness of their lot, resembled giant monsters from an unknown world. These diseased protruding growths put on all manner of fantastic shapes, as his eyes dwelt first upon one, then upon another. It was the shortening winter's day drawing near a close, and a spirit of melancholy brooded over the landscape. On such an evening as this, the thoughts of thinking men are apt to draw comparisons which bring vividly before them the uncertainty of life, and the prospects of that something after death which has never been understood, never will be, until each one solves the problem by going out into the eternal night.
It seemed to Redmond Maynard that he was peering into a mystery he had no hope of solving. He was not a godless man, neither was he a man whose life had been altogether well spent. His mistakes had been many; he acknowledged this, and thereby robbed his detractors of selfish victories. Slowly the sun sank, and as it dipped lower and lower into obscurity the red shadows on the snow grew fainter, the harshness melted, and a gentle warmth seemed to mingle with the biting cold. The glow remained some time after the sun had disappeared, and Redmond Maynard stood in the same position watching it.
.....
"Yes, sir, I'll manage it," replied Bob Heather, with alacrity.
Mary Marley, Mrs. Courtly's maid, was Bob Heather's favourite, and he had an idea she preferred him to any of her admirers.
