The foreigner lifted his hands and eyes to heaven.  Oh, multifarious Providence! who would have suspected that the infinite diversities of thy creation included such beings as these!  With that aspiration, he turned his back on the race-course, and left the place.

On his way out of the grounds he had occasion to use his handkerchief, and found that it was gone.  He felt next for his purse.  His purse was missing too.  When he was back again in his own country, intelligent inquiries were addressed to him on the subject of England.  He had but one reply to give.  “The whole nation is a mystery to me.  Of all the English people I only understand the English thieves!”

In the mean time the two gentlemen, making their way through the crowd, reached a wicket-gate in the fence which surrounded the inclosure.

Presenting a written order to the policeman in charge of the gate, they were forthwith admitted within the sacred precincts The closely packed spectators, regarding them with mixed feelings of envy and curiosity, wondered who they might be.  Were they referees appointed to act at the coming race? or reporters for the newspapers? or commissioners of police?  They were neither the one nor the other.  They were only Mr. Speedwell, the surgeon, and Sir Patrick Lundie.

The two gentlemen walked into the centre of the inclosure, and looked round them.

The grass on which they were standing was girdled by a broad smooth path, composed of finely-sifted ashes and sand—­and this again was surrounded by the fence and by the spectators ranked behind it.  Above the lines thus formed rose on one side the amphitheatres with their tiers of crowded benches, and on the other the long rows of carriages with the sight-seers inside and out.  The evening sun was shining brightly, the light and shade lay together in grand masses, the varied colors of objects blended softly one with the other.  It was a splendid and an inspiriting scene.

Sir Patrick turned from the rows of eager faces all round him to his friend the surgeon.

“Is there one person to be found in this vast crowd,” he asked, “who has come to see the race with the doubt in his mind which has brought us to see it?”

Mr. Speedwell shook his head.  “Not one of them knows or cares what the struggle may cost the men who engage in it.”

Sir Patrick looked round him again.  “I almost wish I had not come to see it,” he said.  “If this wretched man—­”

The surgeon interposed.  “Don’t dwell needlessly, Sir Patrick, on the gloomy view,” he rejoined.  “The opinion I have formed has, thus far, no positive grounds to rest on.  I am guessing rightly, as I believe, but at the same time I am guessing in the dark.  Appearances may have misled me.  There may be reserves of vital force in Mr. Delamayn’s constitution which I don’t suspect.  I am here to learn a lesson—­not to see a prediction fulfilled.  I know his health is broken, and I believe he is going to run this race at his own proper peril.  Don’t feel too sure beforehand of the event.  The event may prove me to be wrong.”