Now this kind of talk from a handsome woman, whom he knows to be infinitely his intellectual superior, can scarcely be displeasing to the most strong-minded of men; and, unluckily, Francis Tredethlyn was not very strong-minded. He looked down at his Julia with a sheepish smile, and acknowledged her pretty flatteries in the lamest possible manner; but when he came to the Cedars next morning, he brought with him the biggest emerald-headed serpent that he had been able to find among the jewellers of the West End, and coiled it about his Julia’s wrist. He was grateful to her for all her tender smiles and pleasant speeches--all the more grateful, perhaps, because of that uncomfortable knowledge of the cold void in his own heart, where love for his promised wife should have been. So he brought her all manner of costly tribute in the way of rings and bracelets, and necklaces and head-gear; and he bought her a three-hundred-guinea hunter at Tattersall’s, so that she should no longer ride Maude Hillary’s horses in the Twickenham lanes. Sometimes, in spite of himself, even when Julia was most agreeable, the thought came upon him that he would only too gladly have given her the whole of his fortune if by such a gift he might have freed himself from the promise that bound him to her. “But if I were free to-morrow, _she_ would not care for me,” he thought, “and what would be the use of my liberty?” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XV. A COMMERCIAL CRISIS. The private theatricals at the Cedars were postponed till Christmas, and in the middle of November Mr. Hillary removed his household to a big bow-windowed habitation at the western end of Brighton. Francis Tredethlyn followed, as in duty bound, and spent a great portion of his life in hurrying to and fro between London and Brighton by express trains. Never had a better adorer done suit and service to a mistress. There were no lovers’ quarrels, no temporary estrangements between these two people. A serene and cloudless sky heralded the coming splendour of their union, and Maude declared again and again that she had never seen such a model pair of lovers.