h one of his blood and name.

1. IX. FAMILIAR PHENOMENA IN THE DISTANCE

By degrees Pierston began to trace again the customary lines of his
existence; and his profession occupied him much as of old. The next
year or two only once brought him tidings, through some residents at his
former home, of the movements of the Bencombs. The extended voyage
of Marcia's parents had given them quite a zest for other scenes and
countries; and it was said that her father, a man still in vigorous
health except at brief intervals, was utilizing the outlook which
his cosmopolitanism afforded him by investing capital in foreign
undertakings. What he had supposed turned out to be true; Marcia
was with them; no necessity for joining him had arisen; and thus the
separation of himself and his nearly married wife by common consent was
likely to be a permanent one.

It seemed as if he would scarce ever again discover the carnate
dwelling-place of the haunting minion of his imagination. Having gone so
near to matrimony with Marcia as to apply for a licence, he had felt for
a long while morally bound to her by the incipient contract, and would
not intentionally look about him in search of the vanished Ideality.
Thus during the first year of Miss Bencomb's absence, when absolutely
bound to keep faith with the elusive one's late incarnation if she
should return to claim him, this man of the odd fancy would sometimes
tremble at the thought of what would become of his solemn intention if
the Phantom were suddenly to disclose herself in an unexpected quarter,
and seduce him before he was aware. Once or twice he imagined that he
saw her in the distance--at the end of a street, on the far sands of
a shore, in a window, in a meadow, at the opposite side of a railway
station; but he determinedly turned on his heel, and walked the other
way.

During the many uneventful seasons that followed Marcia's stroke of
independence (for which he was not without a secret admiration at
times), Jocelyn threw into plastic creations that ever-bubbling spring
of emotion which, without some conduit into space, will surge upwards
and ruin all but the greatest men. It was probably owing to this,
certainly not on account of any care or anxiety for such a result, that
he was successful in his art, successful by a seemingly sudden spurt,
which carried him at one bound over the hindrances of years.

He prospered without effort. He was A.R.A.

But recognitions of thi