e he admitted to himself
the possibility of failure in his carefully laid plans. He recognized the
fact, that there were forces at work against which he had no weapon
ready. He had believed that Berenice was attracted by Mannering's
personality and genius. He had never seriously considered the question of
her feelings becoming more deeply involved. So many men had paid vain
court to her. She had a wonderful reputation for inaccessibility. And yet
he remembered her manner when he had paid his first unexpected visit to
Blakely. It should have been a lesson to him. How far had the mischief
gone, he wondered!

"So Mannering has gone North," he remarked, noticing that she avoided the
subject.

She nodded. Her parasol drooped a little his way, and he wondered whether
it was because she desired her face hidden.

"You saw him?"

"Yes," she answered. "He explained how he felt to me."

"And you could not dissuade him?"

"I did not try," she answered, simply. "Lawrence Mannering is not a man
of ordinary disposition, you know. He had come to the conclusion that it
was right for him to go, and opposition would only have made him the more
determined. I cannot see that there is any harm likely to come of it."

"I am not so sure of that," Borrowdean answered, seriously. "Mannering is
_au fond_ a man of sentiment. There is no clearer thinker or speaker when
his judgment is unbiassed, but on the other hand, the man's nature is
sensitive and complex. He has a sort of maudlin self-consciousness which
is as dangerous a thing as the nonconformist conscience. Heaven knows
into whose hands he may fall up there."

"He is going incognito," she remarked.

"He is not the sort of man to escape notice," Borrowdean answered. "He
will be discovered for certain. Of course, if it comes off all right, the
whole thing will be a feather in his cap. But when I think how much we
are dependent upon him, I don't like the risk."

"You are sure," she remarked, thoughtfully, "that you do not over-rate--"

"Mannering himself, perhaps," Borrowdean interrupted. "There is no man
whose personal place cannot be filled. But one thing is very certain.
Mannering is the only man who unites both sides of our scattered party,
the only man under whom Fergusson and Johns would both serve. You know
quite well the curse which has rested upon us. We have become a party of
units, and our whole effectiveness is destroyed. We want welding into one
entity. A single sessi