The Girl from Nowhere by Baillie Reynolds

When the drunken comrade mutters and the great / guard-lantern gutters, / And the horror of our fall is written plain, / Every secret, self-revealing, on the aching, whitewashed ceiling, / Do you wonder that we drug ourselves from pain? / -- RUDYARD KIPLING.

The master of Normansgrave had come in from his golf, had been upstairs, made the necessary change in his dress, and returned to the hall, where he stood in the light of the fire, reading the _Spectator_. He was a young man of medium height, medium complexion, and medium looks. If it were added that his intellect also was of a medium quality, it would describe him pretty accurately. He was neither good nor bad, able nor foolish, handsome nor ugly. Just one of those men whose bent is determined largely by circumstances.