only done your duty. Good-night, and may you meet with no less loyal and peaceable men than you have surprised here."
"Here are two more watchers to be forgiven," said a voice familiar to the bishop, as two figures, male and female, suddenly descended into the road, and Mrs. Horsfall, bathed in tears, threw herself into the arms of her astonished husband, while Mr. Lileham, in a few words, explained the anxiety which had prompted their pursuit. Anger was out of the question; a general laugh announced that all was forgiven. Only the bishop attempted to frown, and that was a failure.
Wrecked in Port.
A Serial Story by the Author of "Black Sheep."
Book III.
Chapter XIII.The Result.
The second day after Mrs. Creswell's visit to Helmingham, Walter Joyce was sitting in his chambers, hard at work. The approaching change in his condition had affected him very little indeed. He had laughed to himself to think how little. He would have laughed more had he not at the same time reflected that it is not a particularly good sign for a man to be so much overwhelmed by business or so generally careless as to what becomes of him, as to look upon his marriage with very little elation, to prepare for it in a very matter-of-fact and unromantic way. That no man can serve two masters, we know; and there are two who certainly will not brook being served at the same time by the one worshipper—love and ambition. Joyce had been courting the latter deity for many months with unexampled assiduity, and with very excellent success, and, in reality, had never swerved in his allegiance. The love which he felt for Maud Creswell differed as much from the passion with which, in the bygone years, Marian Ashurst had inspired him, as the thick, brown, turgid Rhine-stream which flows past Emmerich differs from the bright, limpid, diamond-sprayed water which flashes down at Schaffhausen; nevertheless there was "body" in it, as there is in the Rhine-stream at Emmerich, sufficient to keep him straight from any of the insidious attacks of ambition, as he soon had occasion to prove.
Not that the news which Gertrude Benthall had confided to him in regard to Lady Caroline Mansergh had touched him one whit. In the first place, he thought Gertrude had deceived herself, or, at all events, had misconstrued the feelings by which Lady Caroline was actuated; and in the second, supposing the girl was right, and all was as she believed, it would not have had the smallest influence in altering anything he had done. He was not a brilliant man, Walter Joyce, clever in his way, rather lacking in savoir-faire; but he had a rough, odd kind of common sense which stood him in better stead than mere worldly experience, and that showed him that in his true position the very worst thing he could have done for himself would have been to go in for a great alliance. Such a proceeding would have alienated the affections and the confidence of all those people who had made him what he was, or rather who had seen him struggle up to the position he enjoyed, and given him a helping-hand at the last. But it was because he had struggled up himself by his own exertions that they liked him, whereas any effort in his favour by the aid of money or patronage would have sent them at once into the opposition ranks. No, Lady Caroline was still the kindest, the dearest, the best of his friends! He found a letter from her on his return to chambers, full of warm congratulations, telling him that she was compelled to follow the medical advice of which she had spoken to him, and to leave London for a few weeks; but she hoped on her return to welcome him and his bride Chesterfield-street, and retain them ever on the very narrow list of her chiefest intimates. He was engaged on a letter to Jack Byrne when there came a sharp, clear knock at the door; such a different knock from that usually given by the printer's boy, his most constant visitor, that he laid down his pen, and called, "Come in!"
The handle was turned quietly, the door was opened quickly, and Marian Creswell came into the room.
Walter did not recognise her at first; her veil was half over her face, and she stood with her back to the light. A minute after, he exclaimed, "Mrs. Creswell!"
"Yes, Mr. Joyce; Mrs. Creswell! You did not expect me."
"I did not, indeed. You are, I confess, one of the last persons I should have expected to see in these rooms."
"No doubt; that is perfectly natural; but I come on a matter of business."
"As does every one who favours me with a visit. I cannot imagine any one coming here for pleasure. Pray be seated; take the 'client's chair.'"
"You are very bright and genial, Mr. Joyce; as every successful man is."
"As every man ought to be, Mrs. Cres-
