now--now, while realising the ever-impassable gulf which lay between, he
loved her as he had never loved. Yet now he would have given all the
world for the one consoling memory of that last kiss, which he had
refrained from, had refused. The sterility of those long pent-up
springs of love had lent tenfold force to the effort by which at last
they should burst their rock-prison--only to end thus. Yet towards the
eternal ruling of things it was that all bitterness of feeling was due,
not towards her, for had not his uttered premonition from the very first
been, "Nothing lasts, nothing lasts?"

That afternoon he sought out his official superior. The latter looked
coldly surprised, also a little uncomfortable.

"I desire to say, Mr Shaston, that I have changed my mind. I am
prepared to resign my position in the public service, and I have no
doubt it will save you a good deal of trouble. If I adopt this course,
however, it is subject to one stipulation. I wish to leave at once."

"When do you desire to leave, Mr Musgrave?" said the other, unbending
somewhat, for he was overjoyed. He could get his wife's relation into
the berth now, and would be rid of a subordinate whom he thoroughly
hated and at times feared.

"To-morrow at midday, if it can be managed. I shall be prepared to
submit everything to your inspection, and formally hand over the keys."

Shaston readily assented, hardly able to conceal his misgivings lest
Roden might think better of it in the interim. He began, however, a
pompous commendation of the very proper wisdom displayed in deciding
upon such a course, which at once put an end to a very unpleasant state
of affairs, and so forth, but found himself ruthlessly but very politely
"shut up." He had got his way, however.

The next day, accordingly, having formally handed in his resignation "on
the ground of very urgent private affairs," and delivered over all that
had to be delivered over, Roden prepared for his start. He placed his
effects in the hands of an auctioneer, except such few as he cared to
remove, and these could follow him at leisure. His intention was to
leave the country which had brought him nothing better than an
irremovable curse, the curse of a mind roused to feeling again after
many years of cold, philosophical quiescence.

In his desolation, his hardly acknowledged longing for one friendly
word, the lonely and shunned man thought of Peter Van Stolz. Would he
too have tur