?" asked Miss Rankin.

"'Is good luck," sighed Mrs. Bright.--HENRY GALLEON.

I

Francis Breton had known, during the weeks that preceded his letter to
Rachel, torture that became to him at last so personal that he felt
deliberate malignant agency behind its ingenious devices.

At first it had seemed that that wonderful hour with Rachel would
satisfy his needs for a long time to come; he had only, when life was
hard, dull, colourless, monotonous, to recall it--to see again her
movements, to hear her voice, to remember to the last and tiniest detail
the things that she had said, to feel that clutch of her hand upon his
coat, and instantly he was inflamed, exultant.

So, for a time, it was. Into every moment of his daily life he worked
this scene--Rachel was always with him, never, for a single instant, did
he doubt that, in some fashion or another, she was coming to him. He had
purchased an interest in some little business that had to do, for the
most part, with candles, and down to the City now every morning he went.
The candles prospered in a small but steady fashion and he found them of
a more thrilling and romantic interest than he would once have believed
possible. He had always known that he had a business head and now that
his life was equable and regular he was astonished at the useful man
that he was becoming.

He liked the men with whom he worked, he found that some of his friends
of the old days sought him out ... he was assured that he had only to
wait for the death of his grandmother for his restoration to the
Beaminster bosom.

He was, during these first weeks, tranquil, almost happy, feeling that
Mrs. Pont and the rest were, with every hour, passing more surely from
his world, nourishing always, like hoarded treasure, his consciousness
of Rachel....

Then a faint, a very faint restlessness crept upon him. The repetition
of those precious moments was growing dry; from the very frequency of
their recounting came impatience. His assurance that she would,
ultimately, come to him grew chill.

He needed now something more tangible, and gradually there grew with him
the conviction that she would write. She had said, very clearly and
distinctly, that she would not--but, if she cared as he knew that she
did, then this silence must be as impossible for her as for himself.

His state of mind now was that he expected a letter. When he came back
from the City at half-past six or seven he expected to f