ut aside
his consciousness of it. He thanked him for his help in the past, and
implored him to stand by the young society and Mr. Edwardes.

'I shall hardly come back, Lestrange. But what does one man matter? One
soldier falls, another presses forward.'

The watchmaker rose, then paused a moment, a flush passing over him.

'We can't stand without you!' he said abruptly, then, seeing Robert's
look of distress, he seemed to cast about for something reassuring to
say, but could find nothing. Robert at last held out his hand with a
smile, and he went. He left Elsmere struggling with a pang of horrible
depression. In reality there was no man who worked harder at the New
Brotherhood during the months that followed than Lestrange. He worked
under perpetual protest from the _frondeur_ within him, but something
stung him on--on--till a habit had been formed which promises to be the
joy and salvation of his later life. Was it the haunting memory of that
thin figure--the hand clinging to the chair--the white appealing look?

Others came and went, till Catherine trembled for the consequences. She
herself took in Mrs. Richards and her children, comforting the sobbing
creatures afterward with a calmness born of her own despair. Robson,
in the last stage himself, sent him a grimly characteristic message. 'I
shall solve the riddle, sir, before you. The doctor gives me three days.
For the first time in my life, I shall know what you are still guessing
at. May the blessing of one who never blessed thing or creature before
he saw you go with you!'

After it all Robert sank on the sofa with a groan.

'No more!' he said hoarsely-'no more! Now for air-the sea! To-mmorow,
wife, to-morrow! _Cras ingens iterabimus sequor_. Ah me! I leave _my_
new Salamis behind!'

But on that last evening he insisted on writing letters to Langham and
Newcome.

'I will spare Langham the sight of me,' he said, smiling sadly. 'And I
will spare myself the sight of Newcome--I could not bear it, I think!
But I must say good-by--for I love them both.'

Next day, two hours after the Elsmeres had left for Dover, a cab drove
up to their house in Bedford Square, and Newcome descended from it.
'Gone, sir, two hours ago,' said the house-maid, and the priest turned
away with an involuntary gesture of despair. To his dying day the
passionate heart bore the burden of that 'too late,' believing that even
at the eleventh hour Elsmere would have been granted to his pray