"He
takes my daughter, and his philosophy takes the only other woman I care
about! But I believe, after all, that it's bad philosophy."

He stretched his arms in weariness.

"Ah, I feel burnt out!" he said, sinking back into his chair. "I must
answer this," and he took up Alicia's note again, only to fold it up and
put it in his pocket.

"I can't do it now. I must have some fresh air," he exclaimed
petulantly. "This place suffocates me."

He opened the window and hailed a hack-victoria that was crawling by.
Calling to Daisy to tell her he was going for a drive, he ran
down-stairs and jumped in.

"Go to the Park," he said. "You needn't hurry."

The air revived his spirits. He leant back, sniffing its freshness, and
finding the world very good. He met few people about and no one that he
knew. The Park was empty, and the old horse jogged along peacefully.
Insensibly he found himself thinking about what would happen when the
new House met, and sparing a smile for Coxon's defeat, though he was
afraid that gentleman would be only too well provided for. It struck
him that a pitfall or two lay in Sir Robert's path, and he saw his way
to giving Kilshaw a bad quarter of an hour over one of his election
speeches. The only thing that he could not get away from was the thought
of Alicia Derosne. He knew that there was to be nothing more between him
and her, and that she was going away soon, never to return to, soon in
all probability to forget, New Lindsey; yet all his doings and
activities in the future--and his brain began now to be swift to plan
them again--presented themselves to him, not in the actual happening,
but as they would look when read by her. This lover's madness irritated
him so much that at last he took her letter from his pocket and tore it
into little bits, scattering them on the breeze. He could answer it well
enough from memory, and perhaps it would be easier to be his own man
again when he had no tangible, material reminder of her with him. These
things only made a man nurse and cosset fine-drawn feelings, spying
curiously into a heart that might get well if it were covered up and
left alone.

A cheery voice roused him, and his carriage stopped.

"Well, tearing up your bills, eh?" called the Chief Justice from the
side-walk. "You must be glad to be out of it."

"Not I," answered Medland, smiling. "Among other things, I wanted to
appoint your successor."

"Ah, dreadful, dreadful! Young Coxon, isn't