reality, heartbroken and alone. Besides,
what motive had he for work now?
Experience had taught him that he could always
find sufficient press-work in London to
keep body and soul together, and what
more did he want? What more did—
Was it all real, or was he dreaming?
Marian! was it all over between him and
her? was she no longer his Marian? was
he never to see her, to touch her hand, to
hold her in his arms, to live in the light of
those loving eyes again? He thought of
their last conversation and their parting,
he thought of his last letter to her, so full
of hope and love; so tender of the past,
so full of the future; and there, to that,
was the reply lying before him announcing
her marriage. Her marriage—her sale!
She had bartered herself away for fine
houses, horses, carriages, dresses; she,
daughter of James Ashurst, who had loved
her as the apple of his eye, and would as
soon have thought of her renouncing her
religion as of her breaking her plighted
word.

It was odd, he could not explain it; but
his thoughts ran more upon her than upon
himself. He found himself picturing her
as the squire's lady, taking up her position
in society, seated at the head of her table
receiving her guests, at church in the pew
which he recollected so well. He recollected
the back of her head and the kneeling
figure as he had noticed it Sunday after
Sunday when he sat amongst the boys in
the school-pew immediately behind her,
recollected the little grave bow she would
give him as she passed to her seat, and the
warm hand-pressure with which she always
met him after morning service. His love
had lived on that warm hand-pressure for
days; hers, it seems, was not so easily
nourished. He wondered at himself for the
way in which he found himself thinking of
her. Had the mere notion of such treatment
ever entered his mind he should have
raving, now when the actual fact had
occurred he was quiet. He ran through
the whole matter in his mind again, pointed
out to himself the deception that she had
practised on him, the gross breach of faith
of which she had been guilty, showed
himself plainly how her desertion of him
had sprung from the basest motives, not
from lack of love for him, not from
overweening fancy for another—those were
human motives and might be pardoned her
—but from mere avarice and mammon-
worship. And, after cogitating over all
this he felt that he pitied rather than hated
her, and that as to himself, he had not the
remotest care what became of him.

A knock at the door, and before he could
answer Lady Caroline had entered the
room. Joyce was rather pleased than
otherwise at the interruption. He had taken
her ladyship so far into his confidence that
it was impossible to hide from her this last
act in the drama, and it was infinitely
pleasanter that the explanation should come
about here—accidentally, as it were—than
that he should have to seek her with his
story.

"Good morning, Mr. Joyce!"

"Good morning, Lady Caroline!"

"Mr. Joyce, a triumphal procession,
consisting of Lady Hetherington and the
new housekeeper, is marching round the
house, settling what's to be done in each
room between this and the autumn. I
confess I have not sufficient strength of mind
to be present at those solemn rites, and as
this is the only room in the house in which
no change ever takes place—save the
increase of dust, and lately the acquisition of
a bona fide student—I have taken refuge
here, and have brought the Times in order
that I may be sure not to disturb you by
chattering."

"You will not disturb me in the least, I
assure you."

"Why what a dreadfully hollow voice,
and—Mr. Joyce!" continued Lady Caroline,
changing her tone, "how very unwell
you look—so strangely pale and drawn!
Is anything the matter?"

"Nothing, nothing in the least!" he
replied. "You have been good enough to
let me talk to you about myself and my
hopes and aspirations, Lady Caroline
Mansergh. You have probably forgotten"—
Ah, man, devoid of the merest accidence of
worldly grammar—"you have probably
forgotten that this is the morning on which
I was to expect my answer from Miss
Ashurst. It has come! It is here!" and
he stooped forward, picked from the table
the letter, and handed it to her.

Lady Caroline seemed rather surprised
at this mode of proceeding. She took the
letter from Walter's hand, but held it
unopened before her, and said, "You wish
me to read it?"

"If you please," he replied. "There is
no other way by which you could exactly
comprehend the situation, and I wish you
to be made aware of it—and—and to advise
me in it."

Lady Caroline blushed slightly as she
heard these last words, but she said nothing,