e sigh of satisfaction which some people think
expected of them after spirits. 'Now I'm a man again, Trixie; that
has driven off the chill. I'll be off now.'

'Are you _sure_ you're quite well again?' she said anxiously. 'Very
well, then I shan't see you again till you're in church next Tuesday;
and oh, Mark, I do so hope you'll be very, very happy!' He was on the
door-step by this time, and made no reply, while he kept his face
turned from her.

'Good-bye, then,' she said; 'you won't forget my message to Mabel,
will you?'

'Let me see, what was it?' he said. 'Ah, I remember; your love, and
you will if you can, eh?'

'Yes, and say I've had a letter from him this morning,' she added.

He gave a strange laugh, and then, as he turned, she saw how ghastly
and drawn his face looked.

'Have you though?' he said wildly; 'so have I, Trixie, so have I!' And
before she could ask any further questions he was gone.

He walked blindly up the little street and into the main road again,
unable at first to think with any clearness: he had not read the
letter; the stamp and handwriting on the envelope were enough for him.
The bolt had fallen from a clear sky, the thing he had only thought of
as a nightmare had really happened--the sea had given up its dead! He
went on; there was the same old woman in the sun-bonnet, still
crooning the same song; he laughed bitterly to think of the difference
in his own life since he had last seen her--only a short half-hour
ago. He passed the parish church, from which a wedding party was just
driving, while the bells clashed merrily under the graceful spire--no
wedding bells would ever clash for him now. But he must read that
letter and know the worst. Holroyd was alive--that he knew; but had he
found him out? did that envelope contain bitter denunciations of his
treachery? Perhaps he had already exposed him! he could not rest until
he knew how this might be, and yet he dared not read his letter in the
street. He thought he would find out a quiet spot in Kensington
Gardens and read it there; alone--quite alone. He hurried on, with a
dull irritation that the High Street should be so long and so crowded,
and that everybody should make such a point of getting in the way; the
shock had affected his body as well as his mind; he was cold to the
bones, and felt a dull numbing pressure on the top of his head; and
yet he welcomed these symptoms, too, with an odd satisfaction; they
seemed to entitle him