re coming as a matter of course."

"I explained to him after that," said Phineas, "that I should not
return. I shall go over to Ireland. I have a deal of hard reading to
do, and I can get through it there without interruption."

He went up from Saulsby to London on that day, and found himself
quite alone in Mrs. Bunce's lodgings. I mean not only that he was
alone at his lodgings, but he was alone at his club, and alone in the
streets. July was not quite over, and yet all the birds of passage
had migrated. Mr. Mildmay, by his short session, had half ruined the
London tradesmen, and had changed the summer mode of life of all
those who account themselves to be anybody. Phineas, as he sat alone
in his room, felt himself to be nobody. He had told the Earl that
he was going to Ireland, and to Ireland he must go;--because he had
nothing else to do. He had been asked indeed to join one or two
parties in their autumn plans. Mr. Monk had wanted him to go to the
Pyrenees, and Lord Chiltern had suggested that he should join the
yacht;--but neither plan suited him. It would have suited him to be
at Loughlinter with Violet Effingham, but Loughlinter was a barred
house to him. His old friend, Lady Laura, had told him not to come
thither, explaining, with sufficient clearness, her reasons for
excluding him from the number of her husband's guests. As he thought
of it the past scenes of his life became very marvellous to him.
Twelve months since he would have given all the world for a word of
love from Lady Laura, and had barely dared to hope that such a word,
at some future day, might possibly be spoken. Now such a word had in
truth been spoken, and it had come to be simply a trouble to him. She
had owned to him,--for, in truth, such had been the meaning of her
warning to him,--that, though she had married another man, she had
loved and did love him. But in thinking of this he took no pride in
it. It was not till he had thought of it long that he began to ask
himself whether he might not be justified in gathering from what
happened some hope that Violet also might learn to love him. He had
thought so little of himself as to have been afraid at first to press
his suit with Lady Laura. Might he not venture to think more of
himself, having learned how far he had succeeded?

But how was he to get at Violet Effingham? From the moment at which
he had left Saulsby he had been angry with himself for not having
asked Lord Brentford to allow h