Transcriber’s Note Italic text displayed as: _italic_ LUCIUS DAVOREN OR PUBLICANS AND SINNERS A Novel BY THE AUTHOR OF ‘LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET’ ETC. ETC. ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. III. [Illustration] LONDON JOHN MAXWELL AND CO. 4 SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET 1873 [_All rights reserved_] LONDON: ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W. CONTENTS OF VOL. III. Book the Third (_Continued_). CHAP. PAGE XIII. HOW GEOFFREY ENJOYED THE GARDEN-PARTY 1 XIV. LUCILLE HAS STRANGE DREAMS 31 XV. THE DAWN OF HOPE 43 XVI. AN OLD FRIEND REAPPEARS 51 XVII. LUCIUS SEEKS ENLIGHTENMENT 75 XVIII. MR. AGAR’S COLONIAL CLIENT 86 XIX. LUCILLE’S CONFESSION 96 XX. LUCILLE MAKES A NEW FRIEND 132 Book the Last. I. AT ROUEN 144 II. THE STORY GROWS CLEARER 164 III. JULIE DUMARQUES 184 IV. COMING TO MEET HIS DOOM 201 V. ‘’TIS WITH US PERPETUAL NIGHT’ 220 VI. LUCIUS IN QUEST OF JUSTICE 242 VII. THE END OF ALL DELUSIONS 256 VIII. AUNT GLENLYNE 264 IX. GEOFFREY HAS THOUGHTS OF SHANGHAI 291 X. LUCIUS SURRENDERS A DOUBTFUL CHANCE 314 EPILOGUE 330 LUCIUS DAVOREN Book the Third. CHAPTER XIII. HOW GEOFFREY ENJOYED THE GARDEN-PARTY. While Lucius Davoren was thus occupied at the east end of London, Geoffrey Hossack was making the best of an existence which he had made up his mind to consider utterly joyless, so long as adverse fate denied him the one desire of his heart. For him in vain warm August skies were deeply blue, and the bosky dells and glades of the New Forest still untouched by autumn’s splendid decay. For him vainly ran the bright river between banks perfumed with wild flowers. He beheld these things from the lofty standpoint of discontent, and in his heart called Nature a poor creature. ‘I would rather be mewed up in Whitecross-street prison, or in the Venetian Piombi, with Janet for my wife, than enjoy all that earth can give of natural beauty or artificial splendour without her,’ he said to himself, when his cousins had bored him into a misanthropical mood by their insistence upon the charms of rural life, as exemplified at Hillersdon Grange.