Busy as Sydney Campion was, at this juncture of his career, public affairs were, on the whole, less engrossing to him than usual; for a new element had entered into his private life, and bade fair to change many of its currents.

The rector's education of his son and daughter had produced effects which would have astonished him mightily could he have traced their secret workings, but which would have been matter of no surprise to a psychologist.

He himself had been in the main an unsuccessful man, for, although he had enjoyed many years of peace and quiet in his country parish, he had never attained the objects with which he set out in life. Like many another man who has failed, his failure led him to value nothing on earth so highly as success. It is your fortunate man who can afford to slight life's prizes. The rector of Angleford was never heard to utter soothing sentiments to the effect that "life may succeed in that it seems to fail," or that heaven was the place for those who had failed on earth. He did not believe it. Failure was terrible misfortune in his eyes: intellectual failure, greatest of all. Of course he wanted his children to be moral and religious; it was indeed important that they should be orthodox and respectable, if they wanted to get on in the world; but he had no such passion of longing for their spiritual as he had for their mental development. Neither was it money that he wished them to acquire, save as an adjunct; no man had more aristocratic prejudices against trade and pride of purse than Mr. Campion; but he wanted them—and especially he wanted Sydney—to show intellectual superiority to the rest of the world, and by that superiority to gain the good things of life. And of all these good things, the best was fame—the fame that means success.

Thus, from the very beginning of Sydney's life, his father sedulously cultivated ambition in his soul, and taught him that failure meant disgrace. The spur that he applied to the boy acted with equal force on the girl, but with different results. For with ambition the rector sowed the seeds of a deadly egotism, and it found a favorable soil—at least in Sydney's heart. That the boy should strive for himself and his own glory—that was the lesson the rector taught him; and he ought not to have been surprised when, in later years, his son's absorption in self gave him such bitter pain.

Lettice, with her ambition curbed by love and pity, accepted the discipline of patience and self-sacrifice, set before her by the selfishness of other people; but Sydney gave free rein to his ambition and his pride. He could not make shift to content himself, as his father had done, with academic distinction alone. He wanted to be a leader of men, to take a foremost place in the world of men. He sometimes told himself that his father had equipped him to the very best of his power for the battle of life, and he was grateful to him for his care; but he did not think very much about the sacrifices made for him by others. As a matter of fact, he thought himself worth them all. And for the prize he desired, he bartered away much that makes the completer man: for he extinguished many generous instincts and noble possibilities, and thought himself the gainer by their loss.

In Lettice, the love of fame was also strong, but in a modified form. Her tastes were more literary than those of Sydney, but success was as sweet to her as to him. The zest with which she worked was also in part due to the rector's teaching; but, by the strange workings-out of influence and tendency, it had chanced that the rector's carelessness and neglect had been the factors that disciplined a nature both strong and sweet into forgetfulness of self and absorption in work rather than its rewards.

But already Nature had begun with Sydney Campion her grand process of amelioration, which she applies (when we let her have her way) to all men and women, most systematically to those who need it most, securing an entrance to their souls by their very vices and weaknesses, and invariably supplying the human instrument or the effective circumstances which are best calculated to work her purpose. Such beneficent work of Nature may be called, as it was called by the older writers, the Hand of God.

Sydney's great and overweening fault was that form of "moral stupidity" which we term selfishness. Something of it may have come with the faculties which he had inherited—in tendencies and inclinations mysteriously associated with his physical conformation; much had been added thereto by the indulgence of his parents, by the pride of his university triumphs, and by the misfortune of his association in London with men who aggravated instead of modifying the faults of his natural disposition. The death of his father had produced a good effect for the time, and made him permanently more considerate of his mother's and sister's welfare. But a greater and still more permanent effect seemed likely to be produced on him now, for he had opened his heart to the influences of a pure and elevating affection; and for almost the first time there entered into his mind a gradually increasing feeling of contrition and remorse for certain past phases of his life which he knew to be both unworthy in themselves and disloyal (if persisted in) to the woman whom he hoped to make his wife. By a determined effort of will, he cut one knot which he could not untie, but, his thoughts being still centred upon himself, he considered his own rights and needs almost entirely in the matter, and did not trouble himself much about the rights or needs of the other person concerned. He had broken free, and was disposed to congratulate himself upon his freedom; vowing, meanwhile, that he would never put himself into any bonds again except the safe and honorable bonds of marriage.

Thus freed, he went down with Dalton to Angleford for the Easter recess, which fell late that year. He seemed particularly cheery and confident, although Dalton noticed a slight shade of gloom or anxiety upon his brow from time to time, and put it down to his uncertainty as to the Pynsents' acceptance of his attentions to Miss Anna Pynsent, which were already noticed and talked about in society. Sydney was a rising man, but it was thought that Sir John might look higher for his beautiful young sister.

The Parliamentary success of the new member for Vanebury had been as great as his most reasonable friends anticipated for him, if not quite as meteoric as one or two flatterers had predicted. Meteoric success in the House of Commons is not, indeed, so rare as it was twenty years ago, for the studied rhetoric which served our great-grandfathers in their ambitious pursuit of notoriety has given place to the arts of audacity, innovation, and the sublime courage of youthful insolence, which have occasionally worked wonders in our own day.

Sydney had long been a close observer of the methods by which men gained the ear of the House, and he had learned one or two things that were very useful to him now that he was able to turn them to account.

"We have put the golden age behind us," he said one day to Dalton, with the assured and confident air which gave him so much of his power amongst men, "and also the silver age, and the age of brass. We are living in the great newspaper age, and, if a public man wants to get into a foremost place before he has begun to lose his teeth, he must play steadily to the readers of the daily journals. In my small way I have done this already, and now I am in the House, I shall make it my business to study and humor, to some extent, the many-faced monster who reads and reflects himself in the press. In other times a man had to work himself up in Hansard and the Standing Orders, to watch and imitate the old Parliamentary hands, to listen for the whip and follow close at heel; but, as I have often heard you say, we have changed all that. Whatever else a man may do or leave undone, he must keep himself in evidence; it is more important to be talked and written about constantly than to be highly praised once in six months. I don't know any other way of working the oracle than by doing or saying something every day, clever or foolish, which will have a chance of getting into print."

He spoke half in jest, yet he evidently more than half meant what he said.

"At any rate, you have some recent instances to support your theory," Dalton said, with a smile. They were lighting their cigars, preparatory to playing a fresh game of billiards, but Sydney was so much interested in the conversation, that, instead of taking up his cue, he stood with his back to the fire and continued it.

"Precisely so—there can be no doubt about it. Look at Flumley, and Warrington, and Middlemist—three of our own fellows, without going any further. What is there in them to command success, except not deserving it, and knowing that they don't? The modest merit and perseverance business is quite played out for any man of spirit. The only line to take in these days is that of cheek, pluck, and devil-may-care."

"Do you know, Campion, you have grown very cynical of late?" said Brooke Dalton, rather more gravely than usual. "I have been rather disposed to take some blame to myself for my share in the heartless kind of talk that used to go on at the Oligarchy. I and Pynsent were your sponsors there, I remember. You may think this an odd thing to say, but the fact is I am becoming something of a fogy, I suppose, in my ideas, and I daresay you'll tell me that the change is not for the better."

"I don't know about that," said Sydney, lightly. "Perhaps it is for the better, after all. You see, you are now laying yourself out to persuade your fellowmen that you can cure them of all the ills that flesh is heir to! But I'll tell you what I have noticed, old man, and what others beside me have noticed. We miss you up in town. You never come to the Club now. The men say you must be ill, or married, or breaking up, or under petticoat government—all stuff and nonsense, you know; but that is what they say."

"They can't be all right," said Brooke, with a rather embarrassed laugh, "but some of them may be." He made a perfectly needless excursion across the room to fetch a cue from the rack that he did not want, while Sydney smoked on and watched him with amused and rather curious eyes. "I suppose I am a little under petticoat government," said Dalton, examining his cue with interest, and then laying it down on the table, "as you may see for yourself. But my sister manages everything so cleverly that I don't mind answering to the reins and letting her get me well in hand."

"No one ever had a better excuse for submitting to petticoat government. But you know what is always thought of a man when he begins to give up his club."

"I am afraid it can't be helped. Then again—perhaps there is another reason. Edith, you know, has a little place of her own, about a mile from here, and she tells me that she will not keep house for me much longer—even to rescue me from club life. The fact is, she wants me to marry."

"Oh, now I see it all; you have let the cat out the bag! And you are going to humor her in that, too?"

"Well, I hardly think I should marry just to humor my sister. But—who knows? She is always at me, and a continual dropping——"

"Wears away the stony heart of Brooke Dalton. Why, what a converted clubbist you will be!"

"There was always a corner of my heart, Campion, in which I rebelled against our bachelor's paradise at the Oligarchy—and you would have opened your eyes if you could have seen into that corner through the smoke and gossip of the old days in Pall Mall."

"The old days of six months ago!" said Sydney, good-humoredly.

"Do you know that Edith and I are going abroad next week?"

The question sounded abrupt, but Dalton had not the air of a man who wants to turn the conversation.

"No," said Sydney, in some surprise. "Where are you going?"

"Well, Edith wants to go to Italy, and I should not wonder if we were to come across a cousin of mine, Mrs. Hartley, who is now at Florence. You know her, I believe?"

"I hardly know her, but I have heard a good deal about her. She has been very kind to my sister—nursed her through a long illness, and looked after her in the most generous manner possible. I am under great obligations to Mrs. Hartley. I hope you will say so to her if you meet."

"All right. Anything else I can do for you? No doubt we shall see your sister. We are old friends, you know. And I have met her several times at my cousin's this winter."

"At those wonderful Sunday gatherings of hers?"

"I dropped in casually one day, and found Miss Campion there—and I admit that I went pretty regularly afterwards, in the hope of improving the acquaintance. If I were to tell you that I am going to Florence now for precisely the same reason, would you, as her brother, wish me good speed, or advise me to keep away?"

"Wish you good speed?"

"Why, yes! Is not my meaning clear?"

"My dear Dalton, you have taken me absolutely by surprise," said Sydney, laying down his cigar. "But, if I understand you aright, I do wish you good speed, and with all my heart."

"Mind," said Dalton hurriedly, "I have not the least idea what my reception is likely to be. I'm afraid I have not the ghost of a chance."

"I hope you will be treated as you deserve," said Sydney, rather resenting this constructive imputation on his sister's taste. Privately, he thought there was no doubt about the matter, and was delighted with the prospect of so effectually crushing the gossip that still hung about Lettice's name. The memory of Alan Walcott's affairs was strong in the minds of both men as they paused in their conversation, but neither chose to allude to him in words.

"I could settle down here with the greatest pleasure imaginable, under some circumstances," said Brooke Dalton, with a faint smile irradiating his fair, placid, well-featured countenance. "Do you think your sister would like to be so near her old home?"

"I think she would consider it an advantage. She was always fond of Angleford. Your wife will be a happy woman, Dalton, whoever she may be—sua si bona norit!"

"Well, I'm glad I spoke to you," said Brooke, with an air of visible relief. "Edith knows all about it, and is delighted. How the time flies! We can't have a game before dinner, I'm afraid. Must you go to-morrow, Campion?"

"It is necessary. The House meets at four; and besides, I have arranged to meet Sir John Pynsent earlier in the day. I want to have a little talk with him."

"To put his fate to the touch, I suppose," meditated Brooke, glancing at Sydney's face, which had suddenly grown a little grave. "I suppose it would be premature to say anything—I think," he said aloud, "that we almost ought to be dressing now."

"Yes, we've only left ourselves ten minutes. I say, Dalton, now I think of it, I'll give you a letter to my sister, if you'll be kind enough to deliver it."

"All right."

"There will be no hurry about it. Give it to her whenever you like. I think it would be serviceable, and I suppose you can trust my discretion; but, understand me—you can deliver the letter or not, as seems good to you when you are with her. I'll write it to-night, and let you have it to-morrow morning before I go."

It would not have occurred to Brooke Dalton to ask for a letter of recommendation when he went a-courting, but Sydney's words did not strike him as incongruous at the time, and he was simple enough to believe that a brother's influence would weigh with a woman of Lettice's calibre in the choice of a partner for life.

Sydney delivered the letter into his keeping next day, and then went up to town, where he was to meet Sir John Pynsent at the Club.

Dalton had been mistaken when he conjectured that Sydney's intentions were to consult Sir John about his pretension to Miss Pynsent's hand. Sydney had not yet got so far. He had made up his mind that he wanted Anna Pynsent for a wife more than he had ever wanted any woman in the world; and the encouragement that he had received from Sir John and Lady Pynsent made him conscious that they were not very likely to deny his suit. And yet he paused. It seemed to him that he would like a longer interval to pass before he asked Nan Pynsent to marry him—a longer space in which to put away certain memories and fears which became more bitter to him every time that they recurred.

It was simply a few words on political matters that he wanted with Sir John; but they had the room to themselves, and Sydney was hardly surprised to find that the conversation had speedily drifted round to personal topics, and that the baronet was detailing his plans for the autumn, and asking Sydney to form one of his house-party in September. Sydney hesitated in replying. He thought to himself that he should not care to go unless he was sure that Miss Pynsent meant to accept him. Perhaps Sir John attributed his hesitation to its real cause, for he said, more heartily than ever.

"We all want you, you know. Nan is dying to talk over your constituents with you. She has got some Workmen's Club on hand that she wants the member to open, with an appropriate speech, so you had better prepare yourself."

"Miss Pynsent is interested in the Vanebury workmen. I shall be delighted to help at any time."

"Too much interested," said Sir John, bluntly. "I'll tell her she'll be an out and out Radical by and by. You know she has a nice little place of her own just outside Vanebury, and she vows she'll go and live there when she is twenty-one, and work for the good of the people. My authority over her will cease entirely when she is of age."

"But not your influence," said Sydney.

"Well—I don't know that I have very much. The proper person to influence Nan will be her husband, when she has one."

"If I were not a poor man——" Sydney began impulsively, and then stopped short. But a good-humored curl of Sir John's mouth, an inquiring twinkle in his eye, told him that he must proceed. So, in five minutes, his proposal was made, and a good deal earlier than he had expected it to be. It must be confessed that Sir John had led him on. And Sir John was unfeignedly delighted, though he tried to pretend doubt and indifference.

"Of course I can't answer for my sister, and she is full young to make her choice. But I can assure you, Campion, there's no man living to whom I would sooner see her married than to yourself," he said at the conclusion of the interview. And then he asked Sydney to dinner, and went home to pour the story into the ears of his wife.

Lady Pynsent was not so much pleased as was he. She had had visions of a title for her sister-in-law, and thought that Nan would be throwing herself away if she married Sydney Campion, although he was a rising man, and would certainly be solicitor-general before long.

"Well, Nan will have to decide for herself," said Sir John, evading his wife's remonstrances. "After all, I couldn't refuse the man for her, could I?" He did not say that he had tried to lead the backward lover on.

"Yes, you could," said Lady Pynsent. "You could have told him it was out of the question. But the fact is, you want it. You have literally thrown Nan at his head ever since he stayed with us last summer. You are so devoted to your friend, Mr. Campion!"

"You will see that he is a friend to be proud of," said Sir John, with conviction. "He is one of the cleverest men of the day, he will be one of the most distinguished. Any woman may envy Nan——"

"If she accepts him," said Lady Pynsent.

"Don't you think she will?"

"I have no idea. In some ways, Nan is so childish; in others, she is a woman grown. I can never answer for Nan. She takes such idealistic views of things."

"She's a dear, good girl," said Sir John, rather objecting to this view of Nan's character.

"My dear John, of course she is! She's a darling. But she is quite impracticable sometimes, as you know."

Yes, Sir John knew. And for that very reason, he wanted Nan to marry Sydney Campion.

He warned his wife against speaking to the girl on the subject: he had promised Campion a fair field, and he was to speak as soon as he got the opportunity. "He's coming to dinner next Wednesday; he may get his chance then."

But Sydney got it before Wednesday. He found that the Pynsents were invited to a garden party—a social function which he usually avoided with care—for which he also had received a card. The hostess lived at Fulham, and he knew that her garden was large and shady, sloping to the river, and full of artfully contrived sequestered nooks, where many a flirtation was carried on.

"She won't like it so well as Culverley," said Sydney to himself, with a half smile, "but it will be better than a drawing-room."

He did not like to confess to himself how nervous he felt. His theory had always been that a man should not propose to a woman unless he is sure that he will be accepted. He was not at all sure about Nan's feelings towards him, and yet he was going to propose. He told himself again that he had not meant to speak so soon—that if he saw any signs of distaste he should cut short his declaration altogether and defer it to a more convenient season; but all the same, he knew in his own heart that he would be horribly disappointed if fate deprived him of the chance of a decisive interview with Anna Pynsent.

Those who saw him at Lady Maliphant's party that afternoon, smiling, handsome, debonnair, as usual faultlessly attired, with a pleasant word for everyone he met and an eye that was perfectly cool and careless, would have been amazed could they have known the leap that his heart gave when he caught sight of Lady Pynsent's great scarlet parasol and trailing black laces, side by side with Nan's dainty white costume. The girl wore an embroidered muslin, with a yellow sash tied loosely round her slender waist; the graceful curve of her broad-brimmed hat, fastened high over one ear like a cavalier's, was softened by drooping white ostrich feathers; her lace parasol had a knot of yellow ribbon at one side, to match the tint of her sash. Her long tan gloves and the MarÉchÁl Niel roses at her neck were finishing touches of the picture which Sydney was incompetent to grasp in detail, although he felt its charm on a whole. The sweet, delicate face, with its refined features and great dark eyes, was one which might well cause a man to barter all the world for love; and, in Sydney's case, it happened that to gain its owner meant to gain the world as well. It spoke well for Sydney's genuine affection that he had ceased of late to think of the worldly fortune that Nan might bring him, and remembered only that he wanted Nan Pynsent for herself.

She greeted him with a smile. She had grown a little quieter, a little more conventional in manner of late: he did not like her any the worse for that. But, although she did not utter any word of welcome, he fancied from her face that she was glad to see him; and it was not long before he found some pretext for strolling off with her to a shadowy and secluded portion of the grounds. Even then he was not sure whether he would ask her to be his wife that day, or whether he would postpone the decisive moment a little longer. Nan's bright, unconscious face was very charming, undisturbed by fear or doubt: what if he brought a shadow to it, a cloud that he could not dispel? For one of the very few times in his life, Sydney did not feel sure of himself.

"Where are you going this summer?" she asked him, as they stood beside the shining water, and watched the eddies and ripples of the stream.

"I usually go abroad. But Sir John has been asking me to Culverley again."

"You do not mean to go to Switzerland, then? You spoke of it the other day."

"No, I think not. I do not want to be so far away from—from London."

"You are so fond of your work: you do not like to be parted from it," she said smiling.

"I am fond of it, certainly. I have a good deal to do."

"Oh!" said Nan, innocently, "I thought people who were in Parliament did nothing but Parliamentary business-like John."

"I have other things to do as well, Miss Pynsent. And in Parliament even there is a good deal to study and prepare for, if one means to take up a strong position from the beginning."

"Which, I am sure, you mean to do," she said quickly.

"Thank you. You understand me perfectly—you understand my ambitions, my hopes and fears——"

She did not look as if she understood him at all.

"Are you ambitious, Mr. Campion? But what do you wish for more than you have already?"

"Many things. Everything."

"Power, I suppose," said Nan doubtfully; then, with a slightly interrogative intonation—"and riches?"

"Well—yes."

"But one's happiness does not depend on either."

"It rarely exists without one or the other."

"I don't know. I should like to live in a cottage and be quite poor and bake the bread, and work hard all day, and sleep soundly all night——"

"Yes, if it were for the sake of those you loved," said Sydney, venturing to look at her significantly.

Nan nodded, and a faint smile curved her lips: her eyes grew tender and soft.

"Can you not imagine another kind of life? where you spent yourself equally for those whom you loved and who loved you, but in happier circumstances? a life where two congenial souls met and worked together? Could you not be happy almost anywhere with the one—the man—you loved?"

Sydney's voice had sunk low, but his eyes expressed more passion than his voice, which was kept sedulously steady. Nan was more aware of the look in his eyes than of the words he actually used. She cast a half-frightened look at him, and then turned rosy-red.

"Could you be happy with me?" he asked her, still speaking very gently. "Nan, I love you—I love you with all my heart. Will you be my wife?"

And as she surrendered her hands to his close clasp, and looked half smilingly, half timidly into his face, he knew that his cause was won.

But, alas, for Sydney, that at the height of his love-triumph, a bitter drop of memory should suddenly poison his pleasure at the fount!