infinitely more in accordance with his
true character than any conclusion we could invent. No writer, even
if he have genius, is so extravagantly logical as nature."

During the winter months Mike was extensively occupied with the
construction of the mausoleum in red granite, which he was raising in
memory of Helen; and this interest remained paramount. He took many
journeys to London on its account, and studied all the architecture
on the subject, and with great books on his knees, he sat in the
library making drawings or composing epitaphs and memorial poems.

Belthorpe Park was often full of visitors, and when walking with them
on the terraces, his thoughts ran on Mount Rorke Castle, his own
success, and Frank's failure; and when he awoke in the sweet,
luxurious rooms, in the houses where he was staying, his brain filled
with febrile sensations of triumph, and fitful belief that he was
above any caprice of destiny.

It pleased him to write letters with Belthorpe Park printed on the
top of the first page, and he wrote many for this reason. Quick with
affectionate remembrances, he thought of friends he had not thought
of for years, and the sadnesses of these separations touched him
deeply; and the mutability of things moved him in his very entrails,
and he thought that perhaps no one had felt these things as he felt
them. He remembered the women who had passed out of his life, and
looking out on his English park, soaking with rain and dim with mist,
he remembered those whom he had loved, and the peak whence he viewed
the desert district of his amours--Lily Young. She haunted in his
life.

He saw himself a knight in the tourney, and her eyes fixed on him,
while he calmed his fiery dexter and tilted for her; he saw her in
the silk comfort of the brougham, by his side, their bodies rocked
gently together; he saw her in the South when reading Mrs. Byril's
descriptions of rocky coast and olive fields.

The English park lay deep in snow, and the familiar word roses then
took magical significance, and the imagined Southern air was full of
Lily.

"There's a sweet girl here, and I'm sure you would like her; she is
so slender, so blithe and winsome, and so wayward. She has been sent
abroad for her health, and is forbidden to go out after sunset, but
will not obey. I am afraid she is dying of consumption.... She has
taken a great fancy to me. There is no one in our hotel but a few old
maids, who discuss the peerage, and