pulpit than in the duller language of a psychological narrative. He had certainly given Morewood one false impression, or rather, perhaps Morewood had drawn one false though natural inference for himself. He thought of Stafford, and his letter passed on the same view to Eugene, as of a man suffering tortures that passed enduring. Perhaps at the moment of their interview such was the case: the dramatic picture Stafford had drawn had for the moment terrified afresh the man who drew it. His normal state of mind, however, at this time was not unhappy. He was wretched now and then by effort; he was tortured by the sense of sin when he remembered to be. But for the most part he was too completely conquered by his passion to do other than rejoice in it. Possessed wholly by it, and full of an undoubting confidence that Claudia returned his love, or needed only to realize it fully to return it fully, he had silenced all opposition, and went forth to his wooing with an exultation and a triumph that no transitory self-judgments could greatly diminish. Life lay before him, long and full and rich and sweet. Let trouble be what it would, and right be what it might, life and love were in his own hands. The picture of a man giving up all he thought worth having, driven in misery by a force he could not resist to seek a remedy that he despaired of gaining--a remedy which, even if gained, would bring him nothing but fresh pain--this picture, over which Eugene was mourning in honest and perplexed friendship, never took form as a true presentment of himself to the man it was supposed to embody. If Eugene had known this, he would probably have felt less sympathy and more rivalry, and would have assented to Ayre's view of the situation rather than doubtingly maintained his own. A man may sometimes change himself more easily than he can persuade his friends to recognize the change. Stafford left the Retreat the morning after his meeting with Morewood, feeling, he confessed to himself, as if he had taken a somewhat unfair advantage of its hospitality. The result of his sojourn there, if known to the Founder, might have been a trial of that enthusiast's consistency to his principles, and Stafford was glad to be allowed to depart, as he had come, unquestioned. He came straight to London, and turned at once to the task of finding Claudia as soon as he could. The most likely quarter for information was, he thought, Eugene Lane or his mother; and on the afternoon of his arrival in town--on the same day, that is, as Eugene had surprised Sir Roderick at breakfast--he knocked at the door of Eugene's house in Upper Berkeley Street, and inquired if Eugene were at home. The man told him that Mr. Lane had returned only that morning, from America, he believed, and had left the house an hour ago, on his way to Territon Park; he added that he believed Mr. Lane had received a telegram from Lord Rickmansworth inviting him to go down. Mrs. Lane was at Millstead Manor.