go to Switzerland, then? You spoke of it the other
day."

"No, I think not. I do not want to be so far away from--from London."

"You are so fond of your work: you do not like to be parted from it,"
she said smiling.

"I am fond of it, certainly. I have a good deal to do."

"Oh!" said Nan, innocently, "I thought people who were in Parliament did
nothing but Parliamentary business-like John."

"I have other things to do as well, Miss Pynsent. And in Parliament even
there is a good deal to study and prepare for, if one means to take up a
strong position from the beginning."

"Which, I am sure, you mean to do," she said quickly.

"Thank you. You understand me perfectly--you understand my ambitions, my
hopes and fears----"

She did not look as if she understood him at all.

"Are you ambitious, Mr. Campion? But what do you wish for more than you
have already?"

"Many things. Everything."

"Power, I suppose," said Nan doubtfully; then, with a slightly
interrogative intonation--"and riches?"

"Well--yes."

"But one's happiness does not depend on either."

"It rarely exists without one or the other."

"I don't know. I should like to live in a cottage and be quite poor and
bake the bread, and work hard all day, and sleep soundly all night----"

"Yes, if it were for the sake of those you loved," said Sydney,
venturing to look at her significantly.

Nan nodded, and a faint smile curved her lips: her eyes grew tender and
soft.

"Can you not imagine another kind of life? where you spent yourself
equally for those whom you loved and who loved you, but in happier
circumstances? a life where two congenial souls met and worked together?
Could you not be happy almost anywhere with the one--the man--you
loved?"

Sydney's voice had sunk low, but his eyes expressed more passion than
his voice, which was kept sedulously steady. Nan was more aware of the
look in his eyes than of the words he actually used. She cast a
half-frightened look at him, and then turned rosy-red.

"Could you be happy with me?" he asked her, still speaking very gently.
"Nan, I love you--I love you with all my heart. Will you be my wife?"

And as she surrendered her hands to his close clasp, and looked half
smilingly, half timidly into his face, he knew that his cause was won.

But, alas, for Sydney, that at the height of his love-triumph, a bitter
drop of memory should suddenly poison his pleasure at the fount!

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A