fading
from her mind." He understood it all. And yet how could it possibly
be so? How could it be that she should not despise a man,--despise
him if she did not hate him,--who had behaved as this man had behaved
to her? It was now four years since this Crosbie had been engaged to
Miss Dale, and had jilted her so heartlessly as to incur the disgust
of every man in London who had heard the story. He had married an
earl's daughter, who had left him within a few months of their
marriage, and now Mr. Crosbie's noble wife was dead. The wife was
dead, and simply because the man was free again, he, John Eames,
was to be told that Miss Dale's mind was "disturbed", and that her
thoughts were going back to things which had faded from her memory,
and which should have been long since banished altogether from such
holy ground.

If Lily Dale were now to marry Mr. Crosbie, anything so perversely
cruel as the fate of John Eames would never yet have been told in
romance. That was his own idea on the matter as he sat smoking his
cigar. I have said that he was proud of his constancy, and yet, in
some sort, he was also ashamed of it. He acknowledged the fact of his
love, and believed himself to have out-Jacobed Jacob; but he felt
that it was hard for a man who had risen in the world as he had done
to be made a plaything of by a foolish passion. It was now four years
ago,--that affair of Crosbie,--and Miss Dale should have accepted him
long since. Half-a-dozen times he had made up his mind to be very
stern to her; and he had written somewhat sternly,--but the first
moment that he saw her he was conquered again. "And now that brute
will reappear, and everything will be wrong again," he said to
himself. If the brute did reappear, something should happen of which
the world should hear the tidings. So he lit another cigar, and began
to think what that something should be.

As he did so he heard a loud noise, as of harsh, rattling winds in
the next room, and he knew that Sir Raffle had come back from the
Treasury. There was a creaking of boots, and a knocking of chairs,
and a ringing of bells, and then a loud angry voice,--a voice that
was very harsh, and on this occasion very angry. Why had not his
twelve o'clock letters been sent up to him to the West End? Why not?
Mr. Eames knew all about it. Why did Mr. Eames know all about it? Why
had not Mr. Eames sent them up? Where was Mr. Eames? Let Mr. Eames be
sent to him. All which Mr. Eames hear