He held the dainty little note, and mused over it.  At one time the sight of this handwriting had quickened his pulses with a delicious hope; now it stimulated his gloomy reflections.  Such a revival of the past was very unseasonable.

Before going to bed he wrote several letters.  They were announcements of his coming marriage—­brief, carelessly worded, giving as little information as possible.

The next morning was taken up with business.  He saw, among other people, his friend Stark, the picture-collecting lawyer.  Stark had letters from Polterham which assured him that the Liberals were confident of victory.

“Confounded pity that Quarrier just got the start of you!” he exclaimed.  “You could have kept that seat for the rest of your life.”

“Better as it is,” was the cheerful reply.  “I should have been heartily sick of the business by now.”

“There’s no knowing.  So you marry Miss Mumbray?  An excellent choice, I have no doubt.  Hearty congratulations!—­Oh, by-the-bye, Jacobs & Burrows have a capital Greuze—­do look in if you are passing.”

Glazzard perceived clearly enough that the lawyer regarded this marriage just as Quarrier did, the pisaller of a disappointed and embarrassed man.  There was no more interest in his career; he had sunk finally into the commonplace.

At three o’clock he was at home again, and without occupation.  The calendar on his writing-table reminded him that it was Thursday.  After all, he might as well respond to the friendly invitation of last evening, and say good-bye to his stately acquaintances in Grosvenor Square.  He paid a little attention to costume, and presently went forth.

In this drawing-room he had been wont to shine with the double radiance of artist and critic.  Here he had talked pictures with the fashionable painters of the day; music with men and women of resonant name.  The accomplished hostess was ever ready with that smile she bestowed only upon a few favourites, and her daughter—­ well, he had misunderstood, and so came to grief one evening of mid-season.  A rebuff, the gentlest possible, but leaving no scintilla of hope.  At the end of the same season she gave her hand to Sir Something Somebody, the diplomatist.

And to-day the hostess was as kind as ever, smiled quite in the old way, held his hand a moment longer than was necessary.  A dozen callers were in the room, he had no opportunity for private speech, and went away without having mentioned the step he was about to take.  Better so; he might have spoken indiscreetly, unbecomingly, in a tone which would only have surprised and shocked that gracious lady.

He reached his rooms again with brain and heart in fiery tumult.  Serena Mumbray!—­he was tempted to put an end to his life in some brutal fashion, such as suited with his debasement.

Another letter had arrived during his absence.  An hour passed before he saw it, but when his eye at length fell on the envelope he was roused to attention.  He took out a sheet of blue note-paper, covered with large, clerkly writing.