for the pleasure and distraction that life was temporarily denying him
elsewhere.

At the same time, curiously enough, the stress of his financial position
was reflected even in what, to himself, at any rate, he was boldly
beginning to call his "passion" for her. It had come to his knowledge
that Mr. Boyce had during the past year succeeded beyond all expectation
in clearing the Mellor estate. He had made skilful use of a railway
lately opened on the edge of his property; had sold building land in
the neighbourhood of a small country town on the line, within a
convenient distance of London; had consolidated and improved several of
his farms and relet them at higher rents; was, in fact, according to
Wharton's local informant, in a fair way to be some day, if he lived,
quite as prosperous as his grandfather, in spite of old scandals and
invalidism. Wharton knew, or thought he knew, that he would not live,
and that Marcella would be his heiress. The prospect was not perhaps
brilliant, but it was something; it affected the outlook.

Although, however, this consideration counted, it was, to do him
justice, _Marcella_, the creature herself, that he desired. But for her
presence in his life he would probably have gone heiress-hunting with
the least possible delay. As it was, his growing determination to win
her, together with his advocacy of the Damesley workers--amply sufficed,
during the days that followed his evening talk with Lady Selina, to
maintain his own illusions about himself and so to keep up the zest of
life.

Yes!--to master and breathe passion into Marcella Boyce, might safely be
reckoned on, he thought, to hurry a man's blood. And after it had gone
so far between them--after he had satisfied himself that her fancy, her
temper, her heart, were all more or less occupied with him--was he to
see her tamely recovered by Aldous Raeburn--by the man whose advancing
parliamentary position was now adding fresh offence to the old grievance
and dislike? No! not without a dash--a throw for it!

For a while, after Lady Selina's confidences, jealous annoyance,
together with a certain reckless state of nerves, turned him almost into
the pining lover. For he could not see Marcella. She came no more to
Mrs. Lane; and the house in James Street was not open to him. He
perfectly understood that the Winterbournes did not want to know him.

At last Mrs. Lane, a shrewd little woman with a half contemptuous liking
for Wharton, le