thing that people were not allowed to read
each other's letters! Her ladyship told the
butler to see that that letter was sent at
once to Mr. Joyce, who was in the library,
expecting it.

The Westhope household was eminently
well drilled, and the footman, who handed
the letter on the salver to Mr. Joyce, was as
respectful as though the secretary were my
lord himself. He had heard Lady Caroline's
remark to the butler, and had turned the
missive over and scrutinised it as he carried
it along the passages. The handwriting
of the address, though firm, was unmistakably
feminine, and the footman, a man
of the world, coupling this fact with what
he had heard, arrived at the conclusion that
the letter was from Mr. Joyce's "young
woman." He walked up to Joyce, who was
busily engaged in writing, croaked out,
"A letter, sir," in the tone usually adopted
by him to offer to dinner-guests their choice
between hock and champagne, and watched
the secretary's manner. Joyce took the
letter from the salver, muttered his thanks,
and turned back to his work. The footman
bowed and left the room with the idea, as
he afterwards remarked to the butler, that
if his suppositions were correct, the secretary
was not "a fellow of much warmth of
feelin'; looked at it and put it down by his
arm as though it was a bill, he did!"

But when the door had shut behind the
retreating figure of the Mercury in plush,
Walter Joyce threw down his pen and took
up the letter, and pressed it to his lips.
Then he opened it, not eagerly indeed, but
with a bright light in his eyes, and a happy
smile upon his lips. And then he read it.
He started at the first line, astonished at
the cold tone in which Marian addressed
him, but after that he read the letter
straight through, without evincing any
outward sign of emotion. When he had
finished it he paused, and shook his head
quickly, as one who has received some
stunning blow, and passed his hand rapidly
across his brow, then set to work to read
the letter again. He had been through it
hurriedly before, but this time he read
every word, then he pushed the paper from
him, and flung himself forward on the
desk, burying his face in his hands. Thus
he remained during some ten minutes;
when he raised himself his face was very
white save round the eyes, where the skin
was flushed and strained, and his hands
trembled very much. He reeled, too, a
little when he first stood up, but he soon
conquered that, and began silently pacing
the room to and fro. Some time afterwards,
when asked to explain what he had felt at
that crisis in his life, Joyce declared he
could not tell. Not anger against Marian,
certainly, no vindictive rage against her
who had treated him so basely. His life
was spoiled, he felt that; it had never been
very brilliant, or very much worth having,
but the one ray which had illumined it had
been suddenly extinguished, and the future
was in utter darkness. He was in the
condition of a man who has been stunned,
or has fainted, and to whom the recollection
of the events immediately engrossing his
attention when, as it were, he was last in
life, came but slowly. He had but a
confused idea of the contents of Marian's letter.
Its general tenor of course he knew, but
he had to think over the details. The letter
was there, lying before him on the desk
where he had thrown it, but he seemed to
have an odd but invincible repugnance to
reading it again. After a somewhat laborious
process of thought he remembered it
all. She was going to be married to Mr.
Creswell—that was it. She could not face
a life of poverty, she said; the comforts and
luxuries which she had enjoyed for the last
few months had become necessary to her
happiness, and she had chosen between him
and them. She did not pretend to care
for the man she was about to marry, she
merely intended to make use of him as the
means to an end. Poor Marian! that was
a bad state for her to be in—poor Marian!
She had jilted him, but she had sacrificed
herself: he did not know which was the
more forlorn out-look.

Yes, it was all over for him! Nothing
mattered much now! Copy out anecdotes
from the family chronicles, hunt up
antiquities and statistics for those speeches
with which Lord Hetherington intended to
astonish the world in the forthcoming
session, settle down as librarian and
secretary for as long as this noble family would
have him, and when they kicked him out
live by literary hack work until he found
another noble family ready to receive him
in the old capacity for a hundred and
fifty pounds a year—why not? He smiled
grimly to himself as he thought of the
Berlin proposition, and how astonished old
Byrne would be when he wrote to decline
it, for he should decline it at once. He
had thought about it so often and so much,
he had allowed his imagination to feast him
with such pictures of himself established
there with Marian by his side, that he felt
utterly unable to face the dark blank