I shall be abroad for some years, and, meanwhile, a new planet will swim into the universe of matrimony.

I shall see the light shining, but its heavenly orbit will not be within my calculations.

Other astronomers will watch, and some no doubt will pray, and I shall read in the annals the bright story of the flower that was turned into a star! "Always yours sincerely, IAN STAFFORD." From the filmy ashes of her letter to him Stafford now turned away to his writing-table.

There he sat for a while and answered several notes, among them one to Alice Mayhew, now the Countess of Tynemouth, whose red parasol still hung above the mantel-piece, a relic of the Zambesi--and of other things.
Periodically Lady Tynemouth's letters had come to him while he was abroad, and from her, in much detail, he had been informed of the rise of Mrs.Byng, of her great future, her "delicious" toilettes, her great entertainments for charity, her successful attempts to gather round her the great figures in the political and diplomatic world; and her partial rejection of Byng's old mining and financial confreres and their belongings.

It had all culminated in a visit of royalty to their place in Suffolk, from which she had emerged radiantly and delicately aggressive, and sweeping a wider circle with her social scythe.
Ian had read it all unperturbed.