"What do you mean by bad? It is not bad with me. It is very well
with me. Keep your pity for those who want it." Then he walked off
by himself across the broad street before the club door, leaving
his friend without a word of farewell, and made his way up into St.
James's Square, choosing, as was evident to Mr. Green, the first
street that would take him out of sight.

"He's hit, and hit hard," said the lawyer, looking after him. "Poor
fellow! I might have guessed it from what he said. I never knew of
his caring for any woman before." Then Mr. Green put on his gloves
and went away home.

We will now follow Will Belton into St. James's Square, and we shall
follow a very unhappy gentleman. Doubtless he had hitherto known and
appreciated the fact that Miss Amedroz had refused his offer, and had
often declared, both to himself and to his sister, his conviction
that that refusal would never be reversed. But, in spite of that
expressed conviction, he had lived on hope. Till she belonged to
another man she might yet be his. He might win her at last by
perseverance. At any rate he had it in his power to work towards the
desired end, and might find solace even in that working. And the
misery of his loss would not be so great to him,--as he found himself
forced to confess to himself before he had completed his wanderings
on this night,--in not having her for his own, as it would be in
knowing that she had given herself to another man. He had often told
himself that of course she would become the wife of some man, but he
had never yet realised to himself what it would be to know that she
was the wife of any one specified rival. He had been sad enough on
that moonlight night in the avenue at Plaistow,--when he had leaned
against the tree, striking his hands together as he thought of his
great want; but his unhappiness then had been as nothing to his agony
now. Now it was all over,--and he knew the man who had supplanted
him!

How he hated him! With what an unchristian spirit did he regard that
worthy captain as he walked across St. James's Square, across Jermyn
Street, across Piccadilly, and up Bond Street, not knowing whither he
was going. He thought with an intense regret of the laws of modern
society which forbid duelling,--forgetting altogether that even had
the old law prevailed, the conduct of the man whom he so hated would
have afforded him no _casus belli_. But he was too far gone in misery
and animosity to be capable