e figure
and keeping beside it for the rest of the evening. Amusement lost its
savour, now that Lilith no more entered into the scheme. Life was dull,
stale, and unprofitable. The days dragged past on leaden feet; he fell
asleep with a sigh, and woke to a pang of remembrance.

For a whole month Francis was a prey to grief, and then, as he himself
would have expressed it, he "bucked up." There came an historic
Saturday evening, when, in the company of a particularly fine cigar he
came to the conclusion that "it was not good enough," and that he could
not "stick" it any more. He had had a whole month of being miserable,
and it was the dullest time he had ever known! In self-defence he must
pull himself together and face the music.

It was astonishing how many saws Francis quoted over that cigar; but he
was as good as his vow, and from that hour he wasted no more regrets on
Lilith Wastneys. So serene and cheerful became his demeanour that his
one confidante congratulated him on having set a pattern to suffering
mankind.

"I have heard many tragic stories. People always do confide in me," she
told him; "but have I met a man who has borne his trouble as you have
borne yours. I feel a better woman from the experience. It has been a
triumph of bravery and endurance!"

"Think so?" said Francis. He was gratified to know that he had made
such a good impression, and reminded himself insistently that lookers-on
saw most of the game. He did this to quieten a tiresome inner voice
which insisted that his cheerful mien was the result of cowardice rather
than of bravery, the cowardice which refused to endure!

"Still, you know," he declared lugubriously, "a fellow feels lonely--"

The confidante sighed, and flicked her light eyelashes.

"I know the feeling," she said.

When a man has made up his mind that it is time to marry, it is foolish
to abandon the plan because one woman out of the teeming millions in the
land refuses to become his wife. This, at least, was Francis Manning's
seasoned decision, and it was emphasised by the announcement of Lilith
Wastneys' wedding, which appeared in the newspapers exactly three months
after her refusal of himself. Whatever sentimental hankerings he might
have cherished for Lilith the maid, it was clearly out of place to cast
another thought towards the wife of Hereward Lowther. Francis had a
deep respect for the conventions, and death itself could not have
removed his former