this difference, that the
soured man was sourer; the gray head, grayer; and the irritable temper
more unendurable than ever. His wife had her rooms in the house and he
had his, and the confidential servants took care that they never met
on the stairs. They had no children. They only saw each other at their
grand dinners and balls. People ate at their table, and danced on their
floor, and compared notes afterward, and said how dull it was. Step by
step the man who had once been Mr. Vanborough's lawyer rose, till the
peerage received him, and he could rise no longer; while Mr. Vanborough,
on the lower round of the ladder, looked up, and noted it, with no more
chance (rich as he was and well-connected as he was) of climbing to the
House of Lords than your chance or mine.

The man's career was ended; and on the day when the nomination of the
new peer was announced, the man ended with it.

He laid the newspaper aside without making any remark, and went out.
His carriage set him down, where the green fields still remain, on the
northwest of London, near the foot-path which leads to Hampstead. He
walked alone to the villa where he had once lived with the woman whom he
had so cruelly wronged. New houses had risen round it, part of the old
garden had been sold and built on. After a moment's hesitation he
went to the gate and rang the bell. He gave the servant his card. The
servant's master knew the name as the name of a man of great wealth,
and of a Member of Parliament. He asked politely to what fortunate
circumstance he owed the honor of that visit. Mr. Vanborough answered,
briefly and simply, "I once lived here; I have associations with the
place with which it is not necessary for me to trouble you. Will you
excuse what must seem to you a very strange request? I should like
to see the dining-room again, if there is no objection, and if I am
disturbing nobody."

The "strange requests" of rich men are of the nature of "privileged
communications," for this excellent reason, that they are sure not to be
requests for money. Mr. Vanborough was shown into the dining-room. The
master of the house, secretly wondering, watched him.

He walked straight to a certain spot on the carpet, not far from the
window that led into the garden, and nearly opposite the door. On that
spot he stood silently, with his head on his breast--thinking. Was it
_there_ he had seen her for the last time, on the day when he left the
room forever? Yes; it