The second day after Mrs. Creswell's visit to Helmingham, Walter Joyce was sitting in his chambers hard at work. The approaching change in his condition had affected him very little indeed. He had laughed to himself to think how little. He would have laughed more had he not at the same time reflected that it is not a particularly good sign for a man to be so much overwhelmed by business or so generally careless as to what becomes of him, as to look upon his marriage with very little elation, to prepare for it in a very matter-of-fact and unromantic way. That no man can serve two masters we know on the best authority; and there are two who certainly will not brook being served at the same time by the one worshipper, love and ambition. Joyce had been courting the latter deity for many months with unexampled assiduity, and with very excellent success, and, in reality, had never swerved in his allegiance. He was afraid he had; he induced himself to believe that that desire for some one to share his life with him was really legitimate love-prompting, whereas it was much more likely a mere wish, springing from vanity, to have some one always at hand with the censer, some one to play the part of the stage-confidante, and receive all his outpourings while at the same time she was loud in his praises. The love which he felt for Maude Creswell differed as much from the passion with which, in the bygone years, Marian Ashurst had inspired him, as the thick brown turgid Rhine stream which flows past Emmerich differs from the bright, limpid, diamond-sprayed water which flashes down at Schaffhausen; but there was "body" in it, as there is in the Rhine stream at Emmerich, sufficient to keep him straight from any of the insidious attacks of ambition, as he soon had occasion to prove.

Not that the news which Gertrude Benthall had confided to him in regard to Lady Caroline Mansergh had touched him one whit. In the first place, he thought Gertrude had deceived herself, or, at all events, had misconstrued the feelings by which Lady Caroline was actuated towards him; and in the second--supposing the girl was right, and all was as she believed--it would not have had the smallest influence in altering anything he had done. He was not a brilliant man, Walter Joyce, clever in his way, but lacking in savoir faire; but he had a rough odd kind of common sense which stood him in better stead than mere worldly experience, and that showed him that in his true position the very worst thing he could have done for himself would have been to go in for a great alliance. Such a proceeding would have alienated the affections and the confidence of all those people who had made him what he was, or rather who had seen him struggle up to the position he enjoyed, and given him a helping hand at the last. But it was because he had struggled up himself by his own exertions that they liked him, whereas any effort in his favour by the aid of money or patronage would have sent them at once into the opposition ranks. No, Lady Caroline was still the kindest, the dearest, the best of his friends! He found a letter from her on his return to chambers, full of warm congratulations, telling him that she was compelled to follow the medical advice of which she had spoken to him, and to leave London for a few weeks; but she hoped on her return to welcome him and his bride to Chesterfield Street, and retain them ever on the very narrow list of her chiefest intimates. He was engaged on a letter to Jack Byrne when there came a sharp clear knock at the door; such a different knock from that usually given by the printer's boy, his most constant visitor, that he laid down his pen, and called sonorously, "Come in!"

The handle was turned quietly, the door was opened quickly, and Marian Creswell came into the room.

Walter did not recognise her at first; her veil was half over her face, and she was standing with her back to the light. A minute after, he exclaimed, "Mrs. Creswell!"

"Yes, Mr. Joyce; Mrs. Creswell! You did not expect me."

"I did not, indeed. You are, I confess, one of the last persons I should have expected to see in these rooms."

"No doubt; that is perfectly natural; but I come on a matter of business."

"As does every one who favours me with a visit. I cannot imagine any one coming here for pleasure. Pray be seated; take the 'client's chair.'"

"You are very bright and genial, Mr. Joyce; as every successful man is."

"As every man ought to be, Mrs. Creswell; as every tolerably successful man can afford to be."

"I suppose you wonder how I found your address."

"Not the least in the world. Unfortunately I know too well that it is in the archives of the Post-office Directory.Behold the painful evidences of the fact!" and he pointed to a table covered with papers. "Petitions, begging-letters, pamphlets, circulars, all kinds of unreadable literature."

"Yes; but I don't study the Post-office Directory,as a rule."

"No; but you looked at it to-day, because you had an object in view. Given the object, you will not hesitate to depart in any way from your usual course, Mrs. Creswell."

"I will not pretend to ignore your sarcasm, nor will I say whether it is deserved or undeserved, though perhaps my presence here just now should have induced you to spare me."

"I did not mean to be sarcastic; I simply gave utterance to a thought that came into my mind. You said you came on a matter of business? I must be rude enough to remind you that I am very busy just now."

"I will detain you a very short time; but, in the first place, let us drop this fencing and folly. You know my husband is dead?"

Joyce bowed.

"And that I am left with a large, a very large fortune at my disposal?"

"I heard so, not merely when I was down at Helmingham the other day, but here in London. It is common talk."

"You were down in Helmingham the other day? Ah, of course! However, suppose I had come to you to say----" and she paused.

Joyce looked at her with great composure. "To say!" he repeated.

"I must go through with it," she muttered beneath her breath. "To say that the memory of old days is always rising in my mind, the sound of old words and places always ringing in my ears, the remembrance of old looks almost driving me mad! Suppose I had come to say all this--and this besides--share that fortune with me!"

"To say that to me!"

"To you!"............