ter's precipitancy
in such cases, but preferred to await issues.

But the young man still thought that Marcia herself, when her temper
had quite cooled, and she was more conscious of her real position, would
return to him, in spite of the family hostility. There was no social
reason against such a step. In birth the pair were about on one plane;
and though Marcia's family had gained a start in the accumulation of
wealth, and in the beginnings of social distinction, which lent colour
to the feeling that the advantages of the match would be mainly on
one side, Pierston was a sculptor who might rise to fame; so that
potentially their marriage could not be considered inauspicious for a
woman who, beyond being the probable heiress to a considerable fortune,
had no exceptional opportunities.

Thus, though disillusioned, he felt bound in honour to remain on call at
his London address as long as there was the slightest chance of Marcia's
reappearance, or of the arrival of some message requesting him to join
her, that they might, after all, go to the altar together. Yet in the
night he seemed to hear sardonic voices, and laughter in the wind
at this development of his little romance, and during the slow and
colourless days he had to sit and behold the mournful departure of his
Well-Beloved from the form he had lately cherished, till she had almost
vanished away. The exact moment of her complete withdrawal Pierston
knew not, but not many lines of her were longer discernible in Marcia's
remembered contours, nor many sounds of her in Marcia's recalled
accents. Their acquaintance, though so fervid, had been too brief for
such lingering.

There came a time when he learnt, through a trustworthy channel, two
pieces of news affecting himself. One was the marriage of Avice Caro
with her cousin, the other that the Bencombs had started on a tour round
the world, which was to include a visit to a relation of Mr. Bencomb's
who was a banker in San Francisco. Since retiring from his former large
business the stone merchant had not known what to do with his leisure,
and finding that travel benefited his health he had decided to indulge
himself thus. Although he was not so informed, Pierston concluded that
Marcia had discovered that nothing was likely to happen as a consequence
of their elopement, and that she had accompanied her parents. He was
more than ever struck with what this signified--her father's obstinate
antagonism to her union wit