At the end of the third week in July, when the Session was still sitting, and when no day had been absolutely as yet fixed¹ for the escape of members, Mr. Wharton received a letter from his friend Arthur Fletcher which certainly surprised him very much, and which left him for a day or two unable to decide what answer ought to be given. It will be remembered that Ferdinand Lopez destroyed himself in March, now three months since. The act had been more than a nine days' wonder, having been kept in the memory of many men by the sedulous² efforts of Quintus Slide, and by the fact that the name of so great a man as the Prime Minister was concerned in the matter. But gradually the feeling about Ferdinand Lopez had died away, and his fate, though it had outlived the nominal³ nine days, had sunk into general oblivion before the end of the ninth week. The Prime Minister had not forgotten the man, nor had Quintus Slide. The name was still common in the columns of the "People's Banner," and was never mentioned without being read by the unfortunate Duke. But others had ceased to talk of Ferdinand Lopez.

To the mind, however, of Arthur Fletcher the fact of the man's death was always present. A dreadful incubus⁴ had come upon his life, blighting⁵ all his prospects⁶, obscuring all his sun by a great cloud, covering up all his hopes, and changing for him all his outlook into the world. It was not only that Emily Wharton should not have become his wife, but that the woman whom he loved with so perfect a love should have been sacrificed to so vile⁷ a creature as this man. He never blamed her,—but looked upon his fate as Fate. Then on a sudden he heard that the incubus was removed. The man who had made him and her wretched had by a sudden stroke been taken away and annihilated⁸. There was nothing now between him and her,—but a memory. He could certainly forgive, if she could forget.

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