position, the accidents of his career--all forbade it. This had been forced upon his consciousness from the very first, in hours of despondency or of torment; but he was too young and too ardent for the fact to have its full weight with him. Hope resisted; passion refused acquiescence. Nothing short of what had happened could reveal to him the vanity of his imaginings. He looked back on the years of patient confidence with wonder and compassion. Had he really hoped? Yes, for he had lived so long alone. Paragraphs, morning, evening, and weekly, had long since published Miss Derwent's engagement. Those making simple announcement of the fact were trial enough to him when his eye fell upon them; intolerable were those which commented, as in the case of a society journal which he had idly glanced over at his club. This taught him that Irene had more social importance than he guessed; her marriage would be something of an event. Heaven grant that he might read no journalistic description of the ceremony! Few things more disgusted him than the thought of a fashionable wedding; he could see nothing in it but profanation and indecency. That mattered little, to be sure, in the case of ordinary people, who were born, and lived, and died, in fashionable routine, anxious only to exhibit themselves at any given moment in the way held to be good form; but it was hard to think that custom's tyranny should lay its foul hand on Irene Derwent. Perhaps her future husband meant no such thing, and would arrange it all with quiet becomingness. Certainly her father would not favour the tawdry and the vulgar. No date was announced. Paragraphs said merely that it would be "before the end of the year." After all, his day amid the fields was spoilt. He had allowed his mind to stray in the forbidden direction, and the seeming quiet to which he had attained was overthrown once more. Heavily he moved towards the wayside station, and drearily he waited for the train that was to take him back to his meaningless toil and strife.