s," Berenice said, quietly. "There must be something great
about a man capable of such prodigious self-sacrifice. For at heart
Lawrence Mannering is an ambitious man."

Lord Redford shrugged his shoulders.

"Perhaps," he said, "but I am very sure of this. There is nothing so
great about the man as his folly."

Berenice smiled.

"We shall see," she said. "Personally, I believe that Sir Leslie would
find his epitaph a little previous. I saw a great deal of Lawrence
Mannering in the country, and I think that I understand him as well as
either of you. I believe that his day will come."

"Well, all I can say is," Lord Redford pronounced, "that I very much
wish you had left him down at his country home. Between you you have
created a very serious situation. I must go up to town to-morrow and see
Manningham. In the meantime, Leslie, I shall leave those reports severely
alone. We must ignore Mannering altogether."

Berenice turned away with a smile at her lips. She had a very little
opinion of Lord Redford and his following. Already she saw the man whose
career they counted finished, at the head of a new and greater party.
There were plenty of clever men of the coming generation, plenty of room
for compromises, for the formation of a great national party out of the
scattered units of a disunited opposition. She believed Mannering strong
enough to do this. She saw in it greater possibilities than might have
been forthcoming even if he had been chosen to lead the somewhat ragged
party represented by Lord Redford and his followers. For the rest, she
had been very near the success she so desired. Only an accident had
robbed her of victory. If once they had reached the rose-garden she knew
that she would have triumphed.

As her maid took off her jewellery that night she smiled at herself in
the glass. She was thinking of that moment on the terrace. The glow had
not wholly faded from her face--she saw herself with her long, slender
neck and smooth, unwrinkled complexion, still beautiful, still a woman to
be loved. Her maid ventured to whisper a word of respectful compliment.
Truly Madame La Duchesse was growing younger!

* * * * *

What strange whim, or evil fate, had turned his feet in that direction?
Mannering often tried to trace backwards the workings of his mind that
night, but he never wholly succeeded. He reached London about eleven, and
sent his man home with his luggage, intending mer