too harassed to consider the amenities. And
when a man is rearranging his whole life he must isolate himself or run
the risk of clouds in his judgment."

He paused. She disguised her mortification and answered, kindly: "I can
understand that in this sudden demand for readjustment you have had many
bad moments. It was far too soon for you to go up to the Peers'. But
with your marvellous energies, your genius--there is no other word for
it--you can soon astonish the world anew with a patent for
defossilization. At all events the Peers' will enter upon a new life as
a sort of mastodon cave swept out and illuminated by the most energetic
and aspiring of knights-errant."

Gwynne laughed dryly. "The role does not appeal to me; nor any other in
the same setting. I have done a month of the hardest thinking of my
life. Everything that went before looks like child's play. I have
arrived at the definite conclusion that my career in England has come
to a full stop, and I have made up my mind to create another--out of
whole cloth--in the United States."

She stared at him, her face not yet unset, but her eyes expanding with
incredulous apprehension. "You mean to desert England?" she asked,
quietly.

"Forever. Absolutely. It is all or nothing. I cannot become an American
citizen until five years after entering the country, and I do not wish
to lose any valuable time. Having made up my mind, I have ceased to
wonder if I shall like it. That is now beside the question. I shall drop
my title as a matter of course, and hope that I shall pass undiscovered
as John Gwynne. In short, I shall begin life all over again--as if I
were a criminal in disguise instead of the sport of circumstances. I
have ceased to regret the inevitable and begun to be stimulated by the
thought of a struggle to which all that I have had here was a mere game,
and I am sure that you, with your brains and energy, will enjoy the
fight as much as I. I am not going into the wilderness. We shall be only
two hours from San Francisco, which I am told is the only city in
America that in the least suggests Europe; it should be very attractive.
On the ranch you shall have every comfort and luxury. You must be sick
of London, anyhow. You have conquered everything here."

He paused and regarded her in some trepidation. In spite of his
self-confidence he had had his moments of doubt. And although he had
anticipated tears and remonstrance, he was unprepared for the more
subtl