e as a contribution to the
polemics of the Irish Question, but as a positive proof of what has
already been suspected, that the Unionist party has in Mr. Bingham a
young statesman of a very high order indeed, and one whom remarkable and
rapid success at the Bar has not hampered, as is too often the case, in
the larger and less technical field of politics."

And so on. Beatrice put the paper down with a smile of triumph.
Geoffrey's success was splendid and unquestioned. Nothing could stop
him now. During all the long journey she pleased her imagination by
conjuring up picture after picture of that great future of his, in which
she would have no share. And yet he would not forget her; she was sure
of this. Her shadow would go with him from year to year, even to the
end, and at times he might think how proud she would have been could she
be present to record his triumphs. Alas! she did not remember that when
all is lost which can make life beautiful, when the sun has set, and
the spirit gone out of the day, the poor garish lights of our little
victories can but ill atone for the glories that have been. Happiness
and content are frail plants which can only flourish under fair
conditions if at all. Certainly they will not thrive beneath the gloom
and shadow of a pall, and when the heart is dead no triumphs, however
splendid, and no rewards, however great, can compensate for an utter and
irredeemable loss. She never guessed, poor girl, that time upon time, in
the decades to be, Geoffrey would gladly have laid his honours down in
payment for one year of her dear and unforgotten presence. She was too
unselfish; she did not think that a man could thus prize a woman's
love, and took it for an axiom that to succeed in life was his one real
object--a thing to which so divine a gift as she had given Geoffrey is
as nothing. It was therefore this Juggernaut of her lover's career that
Beatrice would cast down her life, little knowing that thereby she must
turn the worldly and temporal success, which he already held so cheap,
to bitterness and ashes.

At Chester Beatrice got out of the train and posted her letter to
Geoffrey. She would not do so till then because it might have reached
him too soon--before all was finished! Now it would be delivered to him
in the House after everything had been accomplished in its order. She
looked at the letter; it was, she thought, the last token that could
ever pass between them on this earth. Once s