ways," he said, quietly, "but I cannot marry her."

"And you would kiss me sometimes, Lawrence?" she whispered.

He took her quietly into his arms and kissed her forehead.

"I will do my best, Blanche," he said. "I dare not promise any more."

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

MATRIMONY AND AN AWKWARD MEETING

"How delightfully Continental!" Blanche exclaimed, as the head-waiter
showed them to their table. "Hester, did you ever see anything more
quaint?"

"It is perfect," the girl answered, leaning back in her chair, and
looking around with quiet content.

Mannering took up the menu and ordered dinner. Then he lit a cigarette
and looked around.

"It certainly is quaint," he said. "One dines out of doors often enough,
especially over here, but I have never seen a courtyard made such
excellent use of before. The place is really old, too."

They had found their way to a small seaside resort, in the north of
France, which Mannering had heard highly praised by some casual
acquaintance. The courtyard of the small hotel was set out with round
dining tables, and the illumination was afforded by Japanese lanterns
hung from every available spot. A small band played from a wooden
balcony. Monsieur, the proprietor, walked anxiously from table to
table, all smiles and bows. Through the roofed way, which led from the
street, one caught a distant glimpse of the sea.

Mannering, to the surprise of his friends, and to his own secret
amazement, had survived the crisis which had seemed at one time likely
enough to wreck his life. Politically he was no longer a great power, for
the party whose cause he had half espoused had met with a distinct
reverse, and he himself was without a seat in Parliament, but amongst the
masses his was still a name to conjure with. Socially his marriage with
Blanche Phillimore had scarcely proved the disaster which every one had
anticipated. Her old ways and manner of life lay in the background. She
had aged a little, perhaps, and grown thinner, but she had shown from the
first an almost pathetic desire to adapt her life to his, to assume an
altogether unobtrusive position, and if she could not in any way
influence his destiny, at least she did not hamper it. She had made no
demands upon him which he was not able to grant. She had lived where he
had suggested, she had never embarrassed him with too vehement an
affection. As for Mannering himself, he had found solace in work.
Defeated at the poll