ut, and would surely be ill again, but that
temporarily he was a well man. It was only when he was alone that he
could afford to admit how savage a reminder of his disabilities he
had received. And, indeed, his days of captivity had left their mark
on him--the increased gauntness of his figure apart--in a certain
irritation and nerve distress, which inclined him for once to regret
the multitude of acquaintance that his long habit of sojourning
there had obtained. The clatter of English tongues at _table d'hote_
began to weary him; the heated controversy which waged over the
gambling-tables of the little principality across the bay left him
arid and tired; and the gossip of the place struck him as even more
tedious and unprofitable than of old. He could no longer feign a
decent interest in the flirtations of the three Miss Smiths, as they
were recounted to him nightly by Mrs. Engel, the sympathetic widow
who sat next to him, and whose sympathy he began, in the
enlightenment of his indisposition, to distrust.

The relief with which he hailed the arrival of the post and a budget
of letters from England surprised himself. It struck him that there
was something feverish and strange in this waiting for news. Even to
himself he did not dare to define his interest, confessing how
greatly he cared.

Lightmark's epistles just then were frequent and brief. The marriage
was definitely fixed; the Colonel, his uncle, had been liberal
beyond his hopes: a house in Grove Road of some splendour had been
taken for the young couple, who were to install themselves there
when the honeymoon, involving a sojourn in Paris and a descent into
Italy, was done. Hints of a visit to Rainham followed, which at
first he ignored; repeated in subsequent epistles with a greater
directness, their prospect filled him with a pleasure so strangely
mixed with pain that his pride took alarm. He thought it necessary
to disparage the scheme in a letter to Lightmark, of a coldness
which disgusted himself. Remorse seized him when it had been
despatched, and he cherished a hope that it might fail of its aim.
This, however, seemed improbable, when a fortnight had elapsed and
it had elicited no reply. From Lady Garnett, at the tail of one of
those long, witty, railing letters, in which the old lady excelled,
he heard that the marriage was an accomplished fact, and the birds
had flown. Mrs. Lightmark! the phrase tripped easily from his tongue
when he mentioned it at