confidential,
which was in its nature very private and confidential, and in which
he was told that Lord Brock and Mr Finespun were totally at variance
about French wines. Mr Finespun wanted to do something, now in the
recess,--to send some political agent over to France,--to which Lord
Brock would not agree; and no one knew what would be the consequence
of this disagreement. Here might be another chance,--if only Mr
Palliser could give up his winter in Italy! Mr Palliser, as he took
his place opposite his wife, was very triumphant.

And Mr Grey was triumphant, as he placed himself gently in his seat
opposite to Alice. He seemed to assume no right, as he took that
position apparently because it was the one which came naturally to
his lot. No one would have been made aware that Alice was his own
simply by seeing his arrangements for her comfort. He made no loud
assertion as to his property and his rights, as some men do. He was
quiet and subdued in his joy, but not the less was he triumphant.
From the day on which Alice had accepted his first offer,--nay, from
an earlier day than that; from the day on which he had first resolved
to make it, down to the present hour, he had never been stirred from
his purpose. By every word that he had said, and by every act that he
had done, he had shown himself to be unmoved by that episode in their
joint lives, which Alice's other friends had regarded as so fatal.
When she first rejected him, he would not take his rejection. When
she told him that she intended to marry her cousin, he silently
declined to believe that such marriage would ever take place. He had
never given her up for a day, and now the event proved that he had
been right. Alice was happy, very happy; but she was still disposed
to regard her lover as Fate, and her happiness as an enforced
necessity.

They stopped a night at Basle, and again she stood upon the balcony.
He was close to her as she stood there,--so close that, putting out
her hand for his, she was able to take it and press it closely. "You
are thinking of something, Alice," he said. "What is it?"

"It was here," she said--"here, on this very balcony, that I first
rebelled against you, and now you have brought me here that I should
confess and submit on the same spot. I do confess. How am I to thank
you for forgiving me?"

On the following morning they went on to Baden-Baden, and there they
stopped for a couple of days. Lady Glencora had positively refuse