wretch in fetters. That which he would and would not became
so intervolved that he deemed it reasonable to instance their common
misery as a ground for their union against the world. And what has that
world done for us, that a joy so immeasurable should be rejected on its
behalf? And what have we succeeded in doing, that the childish effort to
move it should be continued at such a cost?

For years, down to one year back, and less--yesterday, it could be
said--all human blessedness appeared to him in the person of Renee, given
him under any condition whatsoever. She was not less adorable now. In her
decision, and a courage that he especially prized in women, she was a
sweeter to him than when he was with her in France: too sweet to be
looked at and refused.

'But we must live in England,' he cried abruptly out of his inner mind.

'Oh! not England, Italy, Italy!' Renee exclaimed: 'Italy, or Greece:
anywhere where we have sunlight. Mountains and valleys are my dream.
Promise it, Nevil. I will obey you; but this is my wish. Take me through
Venice, that I may look at myself and wonder. We can live at sea, in a
yacht; anywhere with you but in England. This country frowns on me; I can
hardly fetch my breath here, I am suffocated. The people all walk in
lines in England. Not here, Nevil! They are good people, I am sure; and
it is your country: but their faces chill me, their voices grate; I
should never understand them; they would be to me like their fogs
eternally; and I to them? O me! it would be like hearing sentence in the
dampness of the shroud perpetually. Again I say I do not doubt that they
are very good: they claim to be; they judge others; they may know how to
make themselves happy in their climate; it is common to most creatures to
do so, or to imagine it. Nevil! not England!'

Truly 'the mad commander and his French marquise' of the Bevisham
Election ballad would make a pretty figure in England!

His friends of his own class would be mouthing it. The story would be a
dogging shadow of his public life, and, quite as bad, a reflection on his
party. He heard the yelping tongues of the cynics. He saw the
consternation and grief of his old Bevisham hero, his leader and his
teacher.

'Florence,' he said, musing on the prospect of exile and idleness:
'there's a kind of society to be had in Florence.'

Renee asked him if he cared so much for society.

He replied that women must have it, just as men must have exerci