sence of John Norton, he rushed to London, and
thence to Marlow. He railed against his own weakness in going to
Marlow, for if a letter had arrived it would have been forwarded to
him.

"Why deceive myself with false hopes? If the letter had miscarried it
would have been returned through the post-office. I wrote my address
plain enough." Then he railed against Lily. "The little vixen! She
will show that letter; she will pass it round; perhaps at this moment
she is laughing at me! What a fool I was to write it! However, all's
well that ends well, and I am not going to be married--I have escaped
after all."

The train jogged like his thoughts, and the landscape fled in
fleeting visions like his dreams. He laid his face in his hands, and
could not disguise the truth that he desired her above all things,
for she was the sweetest he had seen.

"There are," he said, talking to Frank and Lizzie, "two kinds of
love--the first is a strictly personal appetite, which merely seeks
its own assuagement; the second draws you out of yourself, and is far
more terrible. I have found both these loves, but in different
women."

"Did no woman ever inspire both loves in you?" said Lizzie.

"I thought one woman had."

"Oh, tell us about her."

Mike changed the conversation, and he talked of the newspaper until
it was time to go to the station. He was now certain that Lily had
rejected him. His grief soaked through him like a wet, dreary day.
Sometimes, indeed, he seemed to brighten, but there is often a deeper
sadness in a smile than in a flood of tears, and he was more than
ever sad when he thought of the life he had desired, and had lost;
which he had seen almost within his reach, and which had now
disappeared for ever. He had thought of this life as a green isle,
where there were flowers and a shrine. Isle, flowers, and shrine had
for ever vanished, and nothing remained but the round monotony of the
desert ocean. Then throwing off his grief with a laugh, he eagerly
anticipated the impressions of the visit he meditated to Belthorpe
Park, and his soul went out to meet this new adventure. He thought of
the embarrassment of the servants receiving their new master; of the
attitude of the country people towards him; and deciding that he had
better arrive before dinner, just as if he were a visitor, he sent a
telegram saying that the groom was to meet him at the station, and
that dinner was to be prepared.

Lady Seeley's solicitors ha