Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу  Leslie's Loyalty

автор Charles Garvice

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Copyright Fiction by the Best Authors

NEW EAGLE SERIES

ISSUED WEEKLY

The books in this line comprise an unrivaled collection of copyrighted novels by authors who have won fame wherever the English language is spoken. Foremost among these is Mrs. Georgie Sheldon, whose works are contained in this line exclusively. Every book in the New Eagle Series is of generous length, of attractive appearance, and of undoubted merit. No better literature can be had at any price. Beware of imitations of the S. & S. novels, which are sold cheap because their publishers were put to no expense in the matter of purchasing manuscripts and making plates.

ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT

TO THE PUBLIC:—These books are sold by news dealers everywhere. If your dealer does not keep them, and will not get them for you, send direct to the publishers, in which case four cents must be added to the price per copy to cover postage.

Quo Vadis

(New Illustrated Edition)

By Henryk Sienkiewicz

  1—Queen Bess

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

  2—Ruby's Reward

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

  7—Two Keys

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

 12—Edrie's Legacy

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

 44—That Dowdy

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

 55—Thrice Wedded

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

 66—Witch Hazel

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

 77—Tina

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

 88—Virgie's Inheritance

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

 99—Audrey's Recompense

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

111—Faithful Shirley

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

122—Grazia's Mistake

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

133—Max

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

144—Dorothy's Jewels

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

155—Nameless Dell

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

166—The Masked Bridal

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

177—A True Aristocrat

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

188—Dorothy Arnold's Escape

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

199—Geoffrey's Victory

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

210—Wild Oats

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

219—Lost, A Pearle

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

222—The Lily of Mordaunt

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

233—Nora

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

244—A Hoiden's Conquest

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

255—The Little Marplot

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

266—The Welfleet Mystery

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

277—Brownie's Triumph

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

282—The Forsaken Bride

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

288—Sibyl's Influence

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

291—A Mysterious Wedding Ring

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

299—Little Miss Whirlwind

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

311—Wedded by Fate

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

339—His Heart's Queen

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

351—The Churchyard Betrothal

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

362—Stella Rosevelt

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

372—A Girl in a Thousand

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

373—A Thorn Among Roses (Sequel to "A Girl in a Thousand")

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

382—Mona

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

391—Marguerite's Heritage

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

399—Betsey's Transformation

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

407—Esther, the Fright

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

415—Trixy

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

419—The Other Woman

By Charles Garvice

433—Winifred's Sacrifice

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

440—Edna's Secret Marriage

By Charles Garvice

451—Helen's Victory

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

458—When Love Meets Love

By Charles Garvice

476—Earle Wayne's Nobility

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

511—The Golden Key

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

512—A Heritage of Love (Sequel to "The Golden Key")

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

519—The Magic Cameo

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

520—The Heatherford Fortune (Sequel to "The Magic Cameo")  

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

531—Better Than Life

By Charles Garvice

537—A Life's Mistake

By Charles Garvice

542—Once in a Life

By Charles Garvice

548—'Twas Love's Fault

By Charles Garvice

553—Queen Kate

By Charles Garvice

554—Step by Step

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

555—Put to the Test

By Ida Reade Allen

556—With Love's Aid

By Wenona Gilman

557—In Cupid's Chains

By Charles Garvice

558—A Plunge Into the Unknown

By Richard Marsh

559—The Love That Was Cursed

By Geraldine Fleming

560—The Thorns of Regret

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

561—The Outcast of the Family

By Charles Garvice

562—A Forced Promise

By Ida Reade Allen

563—The Old Homestead

By Denman Thompson

564—Love's First Kiss

By Emma Garrison Jones

565—Just a Girl

By Charles Garvice

566—In Love's Springtime

By Laura Jean Libbey

567—Trixie's Honor

By Geraldine Fleming

568—Hearts and Dollars

By Ida Reade Allen

569—By Devious Ways

By Charles Garvice

570—Her Heart's Unbidden Guest

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

571—Two Wild Girls

By Mrs. Charlotte May Kingsley

572—Amid Scarlet Roses

By Emma Garrison Jones

573—Heart for Heart

By Charles Garvice

574—The Fugitive Bride

By Mary E. Bryan

575—A Blue Grass Heroine

By Ida Reade Allen

576—The Yellow Face

By Fred M. White

577—The Story of a Passion

By Charles Garvice

579—The Curse of Beauty

By Geraldine Fleming

580—The Great Awakening

By E. Phillips Oppenheim

581—A Modern Juliet

By Charles Garvice

582—Virgie Talcott's Mission

By Lucy M. Russell

583—His Greatest Sacrifice; or, Manch

By Mary E. Bryan

584—Mabel's Fate

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

585—The Ape and the Diamond

By Richard Marsh

586—Nell, of Shorne Mills

By Charles Garvice

587—Katherine's Two Suitors

By Geraldine Fleming

588—The Crime of Love

By Barbara Howard

589—His Father's Crime

By E. Phillips Oppenheim

590—What Was She to Him?

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

591—A Heritage of Hate

By Charles Garvice

592—Ida Chaloner's Heart

By Lucy Randall Comfort

593—Love Will Find the Way

By Wenona Gilman

594—A Case of Identity

By Richard Marsh

595—The Shadow of Her Life

By Charles Garvice

596—Slighted Love

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

597—Her Fatal Gift

By Geraldine Fleming

598—His Wife's Friend

By Mary E. Bryan

599—At Love's Cost

By Charles Garvice

600—St. Elmo

By Augusta J. Evans

601—The Fate of the Plotter

By Louis Tracy

602—Married in Error

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

603—Love and Jealousy

By Lucy Randall Comfort

604—Only a Working Girl

By Geraldine Fleming

605—Love, the Tyrant

By Charles Garvice

606—Mabel's Sacrifice

By Charlotte M. Stanley

608—Love is Love Forevermore

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

609—John Elliott's Flirtation

By Lucy May Russell

610—With All Her Heart

By Charles Garvice

611—Is Love Worth While?

By Geraldine Fleming

612—Her Husband's Other Wife

By Emma Garrison Jones

613—Philip Bennion's Death

By Richard Marsh

614—Little Phillis' Lover

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

615—Maida

By Charles Garvice

617—As a Man Lives

By E. Phillips Oppenheim

618—The Tide of Fate

By Wenona Gilman

619—The Cardinal Moth

By Fred M. White

620—Marcia Drayton

By Charles Garvice

621—Lynette's Wedding

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

622—His Madcap Sweetheart

By Emma Garrison Jones

623—Love at the Loom

By Geraldine Fleming

624—A Bachelor Girl

By Lucy May Russell

625—Kyra's Fate

By Charles Garvice

626—The Joss

By Richard Marsh

627—My Little Love

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

628—A Daughter of the Marionis

By E. Phillips Oppenheim

629—The Lady of Beaufort Park

By Wenona Gilman

630—The Verdict of the Heart

By Charles Garvice

631—A Love Concealed

By Emma Garrison Jones

633—The Strange Disappearance of Lady Delia

By Louis Tracy

634—Love's Golden Spell

By Geraldine Fleming

635—A Coronet of Shame

By Charles Garvice

636—Sinned Against

By Mary E. Bryan

637—If It Were True!

By Wenona Gilman

638—A Golden Barrier

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

639—A Hateful Bondage

By Barbara Howard

640—A Girl of Spirit

By Charles Garvice

641—Master of Men

By E. Phillips Oppenheim

642—A Fair Enchantress

By Ida Reade Allen

643—The Power of Love

By Geraldine Fleming

644—No Time for Penitence

By Wenona Gilman

645—A Jest of Fate

By Charles Garvice

646—Her Sister's Secret

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

647—Bitterly Atoned

By Mrs. E. Burke Collins

648—Gertrude Elliott's Crucible

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

649—The Corner House

By Fred M. White

650—Diana's Destiny

By Charles Garvice

651—Love's Clouded Dawn

By Wenona Gilman

652—Little Vixen

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

653—Her Heart's Challenge

By Barbara Howard

654—Vivian's Love Story

By Mrs. E. Burke Collins

655—Linked by Fate

By Charles Garvice

656—Hearts of Stone

By Geraldine Fleming

657—In the Service of Love

By Richard Marsh

658—Love's Devious Course

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

659—Told in the Twilight

By Ida Reade Allen

660—The Mills of the Gods

By Wenona Gilman

661—The Man of the Hour

By Sir William Magnay

662—A Little Barbarian

By Charlotte Kingsley

663—Creatures of Destiny

By Charles Garvice

664—A Southern Princess

By Emma Garrison Jones

666—A Fateful Promise

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

667—The Goddess—A Demon

By Richard Marsh

668—From Tears to Smiles

By Ida Reade Allen

670—Better Than Riches

By Wenona Gilman

671—When Love Is Young

By Charles Garvice

672—Craven Fortune

By Fred M. White

673—Her Life's Burden

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

674—The Heart of Hetta

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

675—The Breath of Slander

By Ida Reade Allen

676—My Lady Beth

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

677—The Wooing of Esther Gray

By Louis Tracy

678—The Shadow Between Them

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

679—Gold in the Gutter

By Charles Garvice

680—Master of Her Fate

By Geraldine Fleming

681—In Full Cry

By Richard Marsh

682—My Pretty Maid

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

683—An Unhappy Bargain

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

684—Her Enduring Love

By Ida Reade Allen

685—India's Punishment

By Laura Jean Libbey

686—The Castle of the Shadows

By Mrs. C. N. Williamson

687—My Own Sweetheart

By Wenona Gilman

688—Only a Kiss

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

689—Lola Dunbar's Crime

By Barbara Howard

690—Ruth, the Outcast

By Mrs. Mary E. Bryan

691—Her Dearest Love

By Geraldine Fleming

692—The Man of Millions

By Ida Reade Allen

693—For Another's Fault

By Charlotte M. Stanley

694—The Belle of Saratoga

By Lucy Randall Comfort

695—The Mystery of the Unicorn

By Sir William Magnay

696—The Bride's Opals

By Emma Garrison Jones

697—One of Life's Roses

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

698—The Battle of Hearts

By Geraldine Fleming

700—In Wolf's Clothing

By Charles Garvice

701—A Lost Sweetheart

By Ida Reade Allen

702—The Stronger Passion

By Mrs. Lillian R. Drayton

703—Mr. Marx's Secret

By E. Phillips Oppenheim

704—Had She Loved Him Less!

By Laura Jean Libbey

705—The Adventure of Princess Sylvia

By Mrs. C. N. Williamson

706—In Love's Paradise

By Charlotte M. Stanley

707—At Another's Bidding

By Ida Reade Allen

708—Sold for Gold

By Geraldine Fleming

710—Ridgeway of Montana

By William MacLeod Raine

711—Taken by Storm

By Emma Garrison Jones

712—Love and a Lie

By Charles Garvice

713—Barriers of Stone

By Wenona Gilman

714—Ethel's Secret

By Charlotte M. Stanley

715—Amber, the Adopted

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

716—No Man's Wife

By Ida Reade Allen

717—Wild and Willful

By Lucy Randall Comfort

718—When We Two Parted

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

719—Love's Earnest Prayer

By Geraldine Fleming

720—The Price of a Kiss

By Laura Jean Libbey

721—A Girl from the South

By Charles Garvice

722—A Freak of Fate

By Emma Garrison Jones

723—A Golden Sorrow

By Charlotte M. Stanley

724—Norma's Black Fortune

By Ida Reade Allen

725—The Thoroughbred

By Edith MacVane

726—Diana's Peril

By Dorothy Hall

727—His Willing Slave

By Lillian R. Drayton

728—Her Share of Sorrow

By Wenona Gilman

729—Loved at Last

By Geraldine Fleming

730—John Hungerford's Redemption

By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

731—His Two Loves

By Ida Reade Allen

732—Eric Braddon's Love

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

733—Garrison's Finish

By W. B. M. Ferguson

734—Sylvia, the Forsaken

By Charlotte M. Stanley

735—Married for Money

By Lucy Randall Comfort

736—Married in Haste

By Wenona Gilman

737—At Her Father's Bidding

By Geraldine Fleming

738—The Power of Gold

By Ida Reade Allen

739—The Strength of Love

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

740—A Soul Laid Bare

By J. K. Egerton

741—The Fatal Ruby

By Charles Garvice

742—A Strange Wooing

By Richard Marsh

743—A Lost Love

By Wenona Gilman

744—A Useless Sacrifice

By Emma Garrison Jones

745—A Will of Her Own

By Ida Reade Allen

746—That Girl Named Hazel

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

747—For a Flirt's Love

By Geraldine Fleming

748—The World's Great Snare

By E. Phillips Oppenheim

749—The Heart of a Maid

By Charles Garvice

750—Driven from Home

By Wenona Gilman

751—The Gypsy's Warning

By Emma Garrison Jones

752—Without Name or Wealth

By Ida Reade Allen

753—Loyal Unto Death

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

754—His Lost Heritage

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

755—Her Priceless Love

By Geraldine Fleming

756—Leola's Heart

By Charlotte M. Stanley

757—Dare-devil Betty

By Evelyn Malcolm

758—The Woman in It

By Charles Garvice

759—They Met by Chance

By Ida Reade Allen

760—Love Conquers Pride

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

761—A Reckless Promise

By Emma Garrison Jones

762—The Rose of Yesterday

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

763—The Other Girl's Lover

By Lillian R. Drayton

764—His Unbounded Faith

By Charlotte M. Stanley

765—When Love Speaks

By Evelyn Malcolm

766—The Man She Hated

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

767—No One to Help Her

By Ida Reade Allen

768—Claire's Love-Life

By Lucy Randall Comfort

769—Love's Harvest

By Adelaide Fox Robinson

770—A Queen of Song

By Geraldine Fleming

771—Nan Haggard's Confession

By Mary E. Bryan

772—A Married Flirt

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

773—The Thorns of Love

By Evelyn Malcolm

774—Love in a Snare

By Charles Garvice

775—My Love Kitty

By Charles Garvice

776—That Strange Girl

By Charles Garvice

777—Nellie

By Charles Garvice

778—Miss Estcourt; or, Olive

By Charles Garvice

779—A Virginia Goddess

By Ida Reade Allen

780—The Love He Sought

By Lillian R. Drayton

781—Falsely Accused

By Geraldine Fleming

782—His First Sweetheart

By Lucy Randall Comfort

783—All for Love

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

784—What Love Can Cost

By Evelyn Malcolm

785—Lady Gay's Martyrdom

By Charlotte May Kingsley

786—His Good Angel

By Emma Garrison Jones

787—A Bartered Soul

By Adelaide Fox Robinson

788—In Love's Shadows

By Ida Reade Allen

789—A Love Worth Winning

By Geraldine Fleming

790—The Fatal Kiss

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

791—A Lover Scorned

By Lucy Randall Comfort

792—After Many Days

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

793—An Innocent Outlaw

By William Wallace Cook

794—The Arm of the Law

By Evelyn Malcolm

795—The Reluctant Queen

By J. Kenilworth Egerton

796—The Cost of Pride

By Lillian R. Drayton

797—What Love Made Her

By Geraldine Fleming

798—Brave Heart

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

799—Between Good and Evil

By Charlotte M. Stanley

800—Caught in Love's Net

By Ida Reade Allen

801—Love is a Mystery

By Adelaide Fox Robinson

802—The Glitter of Jewels

By J. Kenilworth Egerton

803—The Game of Life

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

804—A Dreadful Legacy

By Geraldine Fleming

805—Rogers, of Butte

By William Wallace Cook

806—The Haunting Past

By Evelyn Malcolm

807—The Love That Would Not Die

By Ida Reade Allen

808—The Serpent and the Dove

By Charlotte May Kingsley

809—Through the Shadows

By Adelaide Fox Robinson

810—Her Kingdom

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

811—When Dark Clouds Gather

By Geraldine Fleming

812—Her Fateful Choice

By Charlotte M. Stanley

813—Sorely Tried

By Emma Garrison Jones

814—Far Above Price

By Evelyn Malcolm

815—Bitter Sweet

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

816—A Clouded Life

By Ida Reade Allen

817—When Fate Decrees

By Adelaide Fox Robinson

818—The Girl Who Was True

By Charles Garvice

819—Where Love is Sent

By Mrs. E. Burke Collins

820—The Pride of My Heart

By Laura Jean Libbey

821—The Girl in Red

By Evelyn Malcolm

822—Why Did She Shun Him?

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

823—Between Love and Conscience          

By Charlotte M. Stanley

824—Spectres of the Past

By Ida Reade Allen

825—The Hearts of the Mighty

By Adelaide Fox Robinson

826—The Irony of Love

By Charles Garvice

827—At Arms With Fate

By Charlotte May Kingsley

828—Love's Young Dream

By Laura Jean Libbey

829—Her Golden Secret

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

830—The Stolen Bride

By Evelyn Malcolm

831—Love's Rugged Pathway

By Ida Reade Allen

832—A Love Rejected—A Love Won

By Geraldine Fleming

833—Her Life's Dark Cloud

By Lillian R. Drayton

834—A Hero for Love's Sake

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

835—When the Heart Hungers

By Charlotte M. Stanley

836—Love Given in Vain

By Adelaide Fox Robinson

837—The Web of Life

By Ida Reade Allen

838—Love Surely Triumphs

By Charlotte May Kingsley

839—The Lovely Constance

By Laura Jean Libbey

840—On a Sea of Sorrow

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

841—Her Hated Husband

By Evelyn Malcolm

842—When Hearts Beat True

By Geraldine Fleming

843—WO2

By Maurice Drake

844—Too Quickly Judged

By Ida Reade Allen

845—For Her Husband's Love

By Charlotte M. Stanley

846—The Fatal Rose

By Adelaide Fox Robinson

847—The Love That Prevailed

By Mrs. E. Burke Collins

848—Just an Angel

By Lillian R. Drayton

849—Stronger Than Fate

By Emma Garrison Jones

850—A Life's Love

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

851—From Dreams to Waking

By Charlotte M. Kingsley

852—A Barrier Between Them

By Evelyn Malcolm

853—His Love for Her

By Geraldine Fleming

854—A Changeling's Love

By Ida Reade Allen

855—Could He Have Known!

By Charlotte May Stanley

856—Loved in Vain

By Adelaide Fox Robinson

857—The Fault of One

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

858—Her Life's Desire

By Mrs. E. Burke Collins

859—A Wife Yet no Wife

By Lillian R. Drayton

860—Her Twentieth Guest

By Emma Garrison Jones

861—The Love Knot

By Charlotte M. Kingsley

862—Tricked into Marriage

By Evelyn Malcolm

863—The Spell She Wove

By Geraldine Fleming

864—The Mistress of the Farm

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

865—Chained to a Villain

By Ida Reade Allen

866—No Mother to Guide Her

By Mrs. E. Burke Collins

To be published during January, 1914.

867—His Heritage

By W. B. M. Ferguson

868—All Lost But Love

By Emma Garrison Jones

869—With Heart Bowed Down

By Charlotte May Kingsley

870—Her Slave Forever

By Evelyn Malcolm

To be published during February, 1914.

871—To Love and Not be Loved

By Ida Reade Allen

872—My Pretty Jane

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

873—She Scoffed at Love

By Mrs. E. Burke Collins

874—The Woman Without a Heart

By Emma Garrison Jones

To be published during March, 1914.

875—Shall We Forgive Her?

By Charlotte May Kingsley

876—A Sad Coquette

By Evelyn Malcolm

877—The Curse of Wealth

By Ida Reade Allen

878—Long Since Forgiven

By Mrs. E. Burke Collins

To be published during April, 1914.

879—Life's Richest Jewel

By Adelaide Fox Robinson

880—Leila Vane's Burden

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

881—Face to Face With Love

By Lillian R. Drayton

882—Margery, the Pearl

By Emma Garrison Jones

883—Love's Keen Eyes

By Charlotte May Kingsley

To be published during May, 1914.

884—Misjudged

By Evelyn Malcolm

885—What True Love Is

By Ida Reade Allen

886—A Well Kept Secret

By Mrs. E. Burke Collins

887—The Survivor

By E. Phillips Oppenheim

To be published during June, 1914.

888—Light of His Heart

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

889—Bound by Gratitude

By Lillian R. Drayton

890—Against Love's Rules

By Emma Garrison Jones

891—Alone With Her Sorrow

By Charlotte May Kingsley

To be published during July, 1914.

892—When the Heart is Bitter

By Evelyn Malcolm

893—Only Love's Fancy

By Ida Reade Allen

894—The Wife He Chose

By Mrs. E. Burke Collins

895—Love and Louisa

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

In order that there may be no confusion, we desire to say that the books listed above will be issued, during the respective months, in New York City and vicinity. They may not reach the readers, at a distance, promptly, on account of delays in transportation.

THE EAGLE SERIES

Principally Copyrights                  Elegant Colored Covers

"THE RIGHT BOOKS AT THE RIGHT PRICE"

While the books in the New Eagle Series are undoubtedly better value, being bigger books, the stories offered to the public in this line must not be underestimated. There are over four hundred copyrighted books by famous authors, which cannot be had in any other line. No other publisher in the world has a line that contains so many different titles, nor can any publisher ever hope to secure books that will match those in the Eagle Series in quality.

This is the pioneer line of copyrighted novels, and that it has struck popular fancy just right is proven by the fact that for fifteen years it has been the first choice of American readers. The only reason that we can afford to give such excellent reading at such a low price is that our unlimited capital and great organization enable us to manufacture books more cheaply and to sell more of them without expensive advertising, than any other publishers.

ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT

TO THE PUBLIC:—These books are sold by news dealers everywhere. If your dealer does not keep them, and will not get them for you, send direct to the publishers, in which case four cents must be added to the price per copy to cover postage.

  3—The Love of Violet Lee

By Julia Edwards

  4—For a Woman's Honor

By Bertha M. Clay

  5—The Senator's Favorite

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

  6—The Midnight Marriage

By A. M. Douglas

  8—Beautiful But Poor

By Julia Edwards

  9—The Virginia Heiress

By May Agnes Fleming

 10—Little Sunshine

By Francis S. Smith

 11—The Gipsy's Daughter

By Bertha M. Clay

 13—The Little Widow

By Julia Edwards

 14—Violet Lisle

By Bertha M. Clay

 15—Dr. Jack

By St. George Rathborne

 16—The Fatal Card

By Haddon Chambers and B. C. Stephenson

 17—Leslie's Loyalty (His Love So True)

By Charles Garvice

 18—Dr. Jack's Wife

By St. George Rathborne

 19—Mr. Lake of Chicago

By Harry DuBois Milman

 21—A Heart's Idol

By Bertha M. Clay

 22—Elaine

By Charles Garvice

 23—Miss Pauline of New York

By St. George Rathborne

 24—A Wasted Love (On Love's Altar)

By Charles Garvice

 25—Little Southern Beauty

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

 26—Captain Tom

By St. George Rathborne

 27—Estelle's Millionaire Lover

By Julia Edwards

 28—Miss Caprice

By St. George Rathborne

 29—Theodora

By Victorien Sardou

 30—Baron Sam

By St. George Rathborne

 31—A Siren's Love

By Robert Lee Tyler

 32—The Blockade Runner

By J. Perkins Tracy

 33—Mrs. Bob

By St. George Rathborne

 34—Pretty Geraldine

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

 35—The Great Mogul

By St. George Rathborne

 36—Fedora

By Victorien Sardou

 37—The Heart of Virginia

By J. Perkins Tracy

 38—The Nabob of Singapore

By St. George Rathborne

 39—The Colonel's Wife

By Warren Edwards

 40—Monsieur Bob

By St. George Rathborne

 41—Her Heart's Desire (An Innocent Girl)

By Charles Garvice

 42—Another Woman's Husband

By Bertha M. Clay

 43—Little Coquette Bonnie

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

 45—A Yale Man

By Robert Lee Tyler

 46—Off with the Old Love

By Mrs. M. V. Victor

 47—The Colonel by Brevet

By St. George Rathborne

 48—Another Man's Wife

By Bertha M. Clay

 49—None But the Brave

By Robert Lee Tyler

 50—Her Ransom (Paid For)

By Charles Garvice

 51—The Price He Paid

By E. Werner

 52—Woman Against Woman

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

 54—Cleopatra

By Victorien Sardou

 56—The Dispatch Bearer

By Warren Edwards

 58—Major Matterson of Kentucky

By St. George Rathborne

 59—Gladys Greye

By Bertha M. Clay

 61—La Tosca

By Victorien Sardou

 62—Stella Stirling

By Julia Edwards

 63—Lawyer Bell from Boston

By Robert Lee Tyler

 64—Dora Tenney

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

 65—Won by the Sword

By J. Perkins Tracy

 67—Gismonda

By Victorien Sardou

 68—The Little Cuban Rebel

By Edna Winfield

 69—His Perfect Trust

By Bertha M. Clay

 70—Sydney (A Wilful Young Woman)

By Charles Garvice

 71—The Spider's Web

By St. George Rathborne

 72—Wilful Winnie

By Harriet Sherburne

 73—The Marquis

By Charles Garvice

 74—The Cotton King

By Sutton Vane

 75—Under Fire

By T. P. James

 76—Mavourneen

From the celebrated play

 78—The Yankee Champion

By Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.

 79—Out of the Past (Marjorie)

By Charles Garvice

 80—The Fair Maid of Fez

By St. George Rathborne

 81—Wedded for an Hour

By Emma Garrison Jones

 82—Captain Impudence

By Edwin Milton Royle

 83—The Locksmith of Lyons

By Prof. Wm. Henry Peck

 84—Imogene (Dumaresq's Temptation)

By Charles Garvice

 85—Lorrie; or, Hollow Gold

By Charles Garvice

 86—A Widowed Bride

By Lucy Randall Comfort

 87—Shenandoah

By J. Perkins Tracy

 89—A Gentleman from Gascony

By Bicknell Dudley

 90—For Fair Virginia

By Russ Whytal

 91—Sweet Violet

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

 92—Humanity

By Sutton Vane

 94—Darkest Russia

By H. Grattan Donnelly

 95—A Wilful Maid (Philippa)

By Charles Garvice

 96—The Little Minister

By J. M. Barrie

 97—The War Reporter

By Warren Edwards

 98—Claire (The Mistress of Court Regna)

By Charles Garvice

100—Alice Blake

By Francis S. Smith

101—A Goddess of Africa

By St. George Rathborne

102—Sweet Cymbeline (Bellmaire)

By Charles Garvice

103—The Span of Life

By Sutton Vane

104—A Proud Dishonor

By Genie Holzmeyer

105—When London Sleeps

By Chas. Darrell

106—Lillian, My Lillian

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

107—Carla; or, Married at Sight

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

108—A Son of Mars

By St. George Rathborne

109—Signa's Sweetheart (Lord Delamere's Bride)

By Charles Garvice

110—Whose Wife is She?

By Annie Lisle

112—The Cattle King

By A. D. Hall

113—A Crushed Lily

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

114—Half a Truth

By Dora Delmar

115—A Fair Revolutionist

By St. George Rathborne

116—The Daughter of the Regiment

By Mary A. Denison

117—She Loved Him

By Charles Garvice

118—Saved from the Sea

By Richard Duffy

119—'Twixt Smile and Tear (Dulcie)

By Charles Garvice

120—The White Squadron

By T. C. Harbaugh

121—Cecile's Marriage

By Lucy Randall Comfort

123—Northern Lights

By A. D. Hall

124—Prettiest of All

By Julia Edwards

125—Devil's Island

By A. D. Hall

126—The Girl from Hong Kong

By St. George Rathborne

127—Nobody's Daughter

By Clara Augusta

128—The Scent of the Roses

By Dora Delmar

129—In Sight of St. Paul's

By Sutton Vane

130—A Passion Flower (Madge)

By Charles Garvice

131—Nerine's Second Choice

By Adelaide Stirling

132—Whose Was the Crime?

By Gertrude Warden

134—Squire John

By St. George Rathborne

135—Cast Up by the Tide

By Dora Delmar

136—The Unseen Bridegroom

By May Agnes Fleming

138—A Fatal Wooing

By Laura Jean Libbey

139—Little Lady Charles

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

140—That Girl of Johnson's

By Jean Kate Ludlum

141—Lady Evelyn

By May Agnes Fleming

142—Her Rescue from the Turks

By St. George Rathborne

143—A Charity Girl

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

145—Country Lanes and City Pavements

By Maurice M. Minton

146—Magdalen's Vow

By May Agnes Fleming

147—Under Egyptian Skies

By St. George Rathborne

148—Will She Win?

By Emma Garrison Jones

149—The Man She Loved

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

150—Sunset Pass

By General Charles King

151—The Heiress of Glen Gower

By May Agnes Fleming

152—A Mute Confessor

By Will M. Harben

153—Her Son's Wife

By Hazel Wood

154—Husband and Foe

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

156—A Soldier Lover

By Edward S. Brooks

157—Who Wins?

By May Agnes Fleming

158—Stella, the Star

By Wenona Gilman

159—Out of Eden

By Dora Russell

160—His Way and Her Will

By Frances Aymar Mathews

161—Miss Fairfax of Virginia

By St. George Rathborne

162—A Man of the Name of John

By Florence King

163—A Splendid Egotist

By Mrs. J. H. Walworth

164—Couldn't Say No

By John Habberton

165—The Road of the Rough

By Maurice M. Minton

167—The Manhattaners

By Edward S. Van Zile

168—Thrice Lost, Thrice Won

By May Agnes Fleming

169—The Trials of an Actress

By Wenona Gilman

170—A Little Radical

By Mrs. J. H. Walworth

171—That Dakota Girl

By Stella Gilman

172—A King and a Coward

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

173—A Bar Sinister

By St. George Rathborne

174—His Guardian Angel

By Charles Garvice

175—For Honor's Sake

By Laura C. Ford

176—Jack Gordon, Knight Errant

By Barclay North

178—A Slave of Circumstances

By Ernest De Lancey Pierson

179—One Man's Evil

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

180—A Lazy Man's Work

By Frances Campbell Sparhawk

181—The Baronet's Bride

By May Agnes Fleming

182—A Legal Wreck

By William Gillette

183—Quo Vadis

By Henryk Sienkiewicz

184—Sunlight and Gloom

By Geraldine Fleming

185—The Adventures of Miss Volney

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox

186—Beneath a Spell

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

187—The Black Ball

By Ernest De Lancey Pierson

189—Berris

By Katharine S. MacQuoid

190—A Captain of the Kaiser

By St. George Rathborne

191—A Harvest of Thorns

By Mrs. H. C. Hoffman

193—A Vagabond's Honor

By Ernest De Lancey Pierson

194—A Sinless Crime

By Geraldine Fleming

195—Her Faithful Knight

By Gertrude Warden

196—A Sailor's Sweetheart

By St. George Rathborne

197—A Woman Scorned

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

200—In God's Country

By D. Higbee

201—Blind Elsie's Crime

By Mary Grace Halpine

202—Marjorie

By Katharine S. MacQuoid

203—Only One Love

By Charles Garvice

204—With Heart So True

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

205—If Love Be Love

By D. Cecil Gibbs

206—A Daughter of Maryland

By G. Waldo Browne

208—A Chase for a Bride

By St. George Rathborne

209—She Loved But Left Him

By Julia Edwards

211—As We Forgive

By Lurana W. Sheldon

212—Doubly Wronged

By Adah M. Howard

213—The Heiress of Egremont

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

214—Olga's Crime

By Frank Barrett

215—Only a Girl's Love

By Charles Garvice

216—The Lost Bride

By Clara Augusta

217—His Noble Wife

By George Manville Fenn

218—A Life for a Love

By Mrs. L. T. Meade

220—A Fatal Past

By Dora Russell

221—The Honorable Jane

By Annie Thomas

223—Leola Dale's Fortune

By Charles Garvice

224—A Sister's Sacrifice

By Geraldine Fleming

225—A Miserable Woman

By Mrs. H. C. Hoffman

226—The Roll of Honor

By Annie Thomas

227—The Joy of Loving

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

228—His Brother's Widow

By Mary Grace Halpine

229—For the Sake of the Family

By May Crommelin

230—A Woman's Atonement, and A Mother's Mistake

By Adah M. Howard

231—The Earl's Heir (Lady Norah)

By Charles Garvice

232—A Debt of Honor

By Mabel Collins

234—His Mother's Sin

By Adeline Sergeant

235—Love at Saratoga

By Lucy Randall Comfort

236—Her Humble Lover (The Usurper; or, The Gipsy Peer)

By Charles Garvice

237—Woman or Witch?

By Dora Delmar

238—That Other Woman

By Annie Thomas

239—Don Cæsar De Bazan

By Victor Hugo

240—Saved by the Sword

By St. George Rathborne

241—Her Love and Trust

By Adeline Sergeant

242—A Wounded Heart (Sweet as a Rose)

By Charles Garvice

243—His Double Self

By Scott Campbell

245—A Modern Marriage

By Clara Lanza

246—True to Herself

By Mrs. J. H. Walworth

247—Within Love's Portals

By Frank Barrett

248—Jeanne, Countess Du Barry

By H. L. Williams

249—What Love Will Do

By Geraldine Fleming

250—A Woman's Soul (Doris; or, Behind the Footlights)

By Charles Garvice

251—When Love is True

By Mabel Collins

252—A Handsome Sinner

By Dora Delmar

253—A Fashionable Marriage

By Mrs. Alex Frazer

254—Little Miss Millions

By St. George Rathborne

256—Thy Name is Woman

By F. H. Howe

257—A Martyred Love (Iris; or, Under the Shadow)

By Charles Garvice

258—An Amazing Marriage

By Mrs. Sumner Hayden

259—By a Golden Cord

By Dora Delmar

260—At a Girl's Mercy

By Jean Kate Ludlum

261—A Siren's Heart

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

262—A Woman's Faith

By Henry Wallace

263—An American Nabob

By St. George Rathborne

264—For Gold or Soul

By Lurana W. Sheldon

265—First Love is Best

By S. K. Hocking

267—Jeanne (Barriers Between)

By Charles Garvice

268—Olivia; or, It Was for Her Sake

By Charles Garvice

270—Had She Foreseen

By Dora Delmar

271—With Love's Laurel Crowned

By W. C. Stiles

272—So Fair, So False (The Beauty of the Season)

By Charles Garvice

273—At Swords' Points

By St. George Rathborne

274—A Romantic Girl

By Evelyn E. Green

275—Love's Cruel Whim

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

276—So Nearly Lost (The Springtime of Love)

By Charles Garvice

278—Laura Brayton

By Julia Edwards

279—Nina's Peril

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

280—Love's Dilemma (For an Earldom)

By Charles Garvice

281—For Love Alone

By Wenona Gilman

283—My Lady Pride (Floris)

By Charles Garvice

284—Dr. Jack's Widow

By St. George Rathborne

285—Born to Betray

By Mrs. M. V. Victor

287—The Lady of Darracourt

By Charles Garvice

289—Married in Mask

By Mansfield T. Walworth

290—A Change of Heart

By Effie Adelaide Rowland

292—For Her Only (Diana)

By Charles Garvice

294—A Warrior Bold

By St. George Rathborne

295—A Terrible Secret and Countess Isabel

By Geraldine Fleming

296—The Heir of Vering

By Charles Garvice

297—That Girl from Texas

By Mrs. J. H. Walworth

298—Should She Have Left Him?

By Barclay North

300—The Spider and the Fly (Violet)

By Charles Garvice

301—The False and the True

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

302—When Man's Love Fades

By Hazel Wood

303—The Queen of the Isle

By May Agnes Fleming

304—Stanch as a Woman (A Maiden's Sacrifice)

By Charles Garvice

305—Led by Love (Sequel to "Stanch as a Woman")

By Charles Garvice

306—Love's Golden Rule

By Geraldine Fleming

307—The Winning of Isolde

By St. George Rathborne

308—Lady Ryhope's Lover

By Emma Garrison Jones

309—The Heiress of Castle Cliffe

By May Agnes Fleming

310—A Late Repentance

By Mary A. Denison

312—Woven on Fate's Loom and The Snowdrift

By Charles Garvice

313—A Kinsman's Sin

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

314—A Maid's Fatal Love

By Helen Corwin Pierce

315—The Dark Secret

By May Agnes Fleming

316—Edith Lyle's Secret

By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes

317—Ione

By Laura Jean Libbey

318—Stanch of Heart (Adrien Le Roy)

By Charles Garvice

319—Millbank

By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes

320—Mynheer Joe

By St. George Rathborne

321—Neva's Three Lovers

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

322—Mildred

By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes

323—The Little Countess

By S. E. Boggs

324—A Love Match

By Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.

325—The Leighton Homestead

By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes

326—Parted by Fate

By Laura Jean Libbey

327—Was She Wife or Widow?

By Malcolm Bell

328—He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not (Valeria)

By Charles Garvice

329—My Hildegarde

By St. George Rathborne

330—Aikenside

By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes

331—Christine

By Adeline Sergeant

332—Darkness and Daylight

By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes

333—Stella's Fortune (The Sculptor's Wooing)

By Charles Garvice

334—Miss McDonald

By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes

335—We Parted at the Altar

By Laura Jean Libbey

336—Rose Mather

By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes

337—Dear Elsie

By Mary J. Safford

338—A Daughter of Russia

By St. George Rathborne

340—Bad Hugh. Vol. I.

By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes

341—Bad Hugh. Vol. II.

By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes

342—Her Little Highness

By Nataly Von Eschstruth

343—Little Sunshine

By Adah M. Howard

344—Leah's Mistake

By Mrs. H. C. Hoffman

345—Tresillian Court

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

346—Guy Tresillian's Fate (Sequel to "Tresillian Court")  

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

347—The Eyes of Love

By Charles Garvice

348—My Florida Sweetheart

By St. George Rathborne

349—Marion Grey

By Mary J. Holmes

350—A Wronged Wife

By Mary Grace Halpine

352—Family Pride. Vol. I.

By Mary J. Holmes

353—Family Pride. Vol. II.

By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes

354—A Love Comedy

By Charles Garvice

355—Wife and Woman

By Mary J. Safford

356—Little Kit

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

357—Montezuma's Mines

By St. George Rathborne

358—Beryl's Husband

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

359—The Spectre's Secret

By Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.

360—An Only Daughter

By Hazel Wood

361—The Ashes of Love

By Charles Garvice

363—The Opposite House

By Nataly Von Eschstruth

364—A Fool's Paradise

By Mary Grace Halpine

365—Under a Cloud

By Jean Kate Ludlum

366—Comrades in Exile

By St. George Rathborne

367—Hearts and Coronets

By Jane G. Fuller

368—The Pride of Her Life

By Charles Garvice

369—At a Great Cost

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

370—Edith Trevor's Secret

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

371—Cecil Rosse (Sequel to "Edith Trevor's Secret")

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

374—True Daughter of Hartenstein

By Mary J. Safford

375—Transgressing the Law

By Capt. Fred'k Whittaker

376—The Red Slipper

By St. George Rathborne

377—Forever True

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

378—John Winthrop's Defeat

By Jean Kate Ludlum

379—Blinded by Love

By Nataly Von Eschstruth

380—Her Double Life

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

381—The Sunshine of Love (Sequel to "Her Double Life")

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

383—A Lover from Across the Sea

By Mary J. Safford

384—Yet She Loved Him

By Mrs. Kate Vaughn

385—A Woman Against Her

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

386—Teddy's Enchantress

By St. George Rathborne

387—A Heroine's Plot

By Katherine S. MacQuoid

388—Two Wives

By Hazel Wood

389—Sundered Hearts

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

390—A Mutual Vow

By Harold Payne

392—A Resurrected Love

By Seward W. Hopkins

393—On the Wings of Fate

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

394—A Drama of a Life

By Jean Kate Ludlum

395—Wooing a Widow

By E. A. King

396—Back to Old Kentucky

By St. George Rathborne

397—A Gilded Promise

By Walter Bloomfield

398—Cupid's Disguise

By Fanny Lewald

400—For Another's Wrong

By W. Heimburg

401—The Woman Who Came Between

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

402—A Silent Heroine

By Mrs. D. M. Lowrey

403—The Rival Suitors

By J. H. Connelly

404—On the Wings of Fate

By Capt. Fred'k Whittaker

405—The Haunted Husband

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

406—Felipe's Pretty Sister

By St. George Rathborne

408—On a False Charge

By Seward W. Hopkins

409—A Girl's Kingdom

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

410—Miss Mischief

By W. Heimburg

411—Fettered and Freed

By Eugene Charvette

412—The Love that Lives

By Capt Frederick Whittaker

413—Were They Married?

By Hazel Wood

414—A Girl's First Love

By Elizabeth C. Winter

416—Down in Dixie

By St. George Rathborne

417—Brave Barbara

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

418—An Insignificant Woman

By W. Heimburg

420—A Sweet Little Lady

By Gertrude Warden

421—Her Sweet Reward

By Barbara Kent

422—Lady Kildare

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

423—A Woman's Way

By Capt. Frederick Whittaker

424—A Splendid Man

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

425—A College Widow

By Frank H. Howe

427—A Wizard of the Moors

By St. George Rathborne

428—A Tramp's Daughter

By Hazel Wood

429—A Fair Fraud

By Emily Lovett Cameron

430—The Honor of a Heart

By Mary J. Safford

431—Her Husband and Her Love

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

432—Breta's Double

By Helen V. Greyson

435—Under Oath

By Jean Kate Ludlum

436—The Rival Toreadors

By St. George Rathborne

437—The Breach of Custom

By Mrs. D. M. Lowrey

438—So Like a Man

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

439—Little Nan

By Mary A. Denison

441—A Princess of the Stage

By Nataly Von Eschstruth

442—Love Before Duty

By Mrs. L. T. Meade

443—In Spite of Proof

By Gertrude Warden

444—Love's Trials

By Alfred R. Calhoun

445—An Angel of Evil

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

446—Bound with Love's Fetters

By Mary Grace Halpine

447—A Favorite of Fortune

By St. George Rathborne

448—When Love Dawns

By Adelaide Stirling

449—The Bailiff's Scheme

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

450—Rosamond's Love (Sequel to "The Bailiff's Scheme")

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

452—The Last of the Van Slacks

By Edward S. Van Zile

453—A Poor Girl's Passion

By Gertrude Warden

454—Love's Probation

By Elizabeth Olmis

455—Love's Greatest Gift

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

456—A Vixen's Treachery

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

457—Adrift in the World (Sequel to "A Vixen's Treachery")

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

459—A Golden Mask

By Charlotte M. Stanley

460—Dr. Jack's Talisman

By St. George Rathborne

461—Above All Things

By Adelaide Stirling

462—A Stormy Wedding

By Mary E. Bryan

463—A Wife's Triumph

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

464—The Old Life's Shadows

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

465—Outside Her Eden (Sequel to "The Old Life's Shadows")

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

466—Love, the Victor

By a Popular Southern Author

467—Zina's Awaking

By Mrs. J. K. Spender

468—The Wooing of a Fairy

By Gertrude Warden

469—A Soldier and a Gentleman

By J. M. Cobban

470—A Strange Wedding

By Mary Hartwell Catherwood

471—A Shadowed Happiness

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

472—Dr. Jack and Company

By St. George Rathborne

473—A Sacrifice to Love

By Adelaide Stirling

474—The Belle of the Season

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

475—Love Before Pride (Sequel to "The Belle of the Season")

By Mrs. Harriet Lewis

477—The Siberian Exiles

By Col. Thomas Knox

478—For Love of Sigrid

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

479—Mysterious Mr. Sabin

By E. Phillips Oppenheim

480—A Perfect Fool

By Florence Warden

481—Wedded, Yet No Wife

By May Agnes Fleming

482—A Little Worldling

By L. C. Ellsworth

483—Miss Marston's Heart

By L. H. Bickford

484—The Whistle of Fate

By Richard Marsh

485—The End Crowns All

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

486—Divided Lives

By Edgar Fawcett

487—A Wonderful Woman

By May Agnes Fleming

488—The French Witch

By Gertrude Warden

489—Lucy Harding

By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes

490—The Price of Jealousy

By Maud Howe

491—My Lady of Dreadwood

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

492—A Speedy Wooing

By the Author of "As Common Mortals"

493—The Girl He Loved

By Adelaide Stirling

494—Voyagers of Fortune

By St. George Rathborne

495—Norine's Revenge

By May Agnes Fleming

496—The Missing Heiress

By C. H. Montague

497—A Chase for Love

By Seward W. Hopkins

498—Andrew Leicester's Love

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

499—My Lady Cinderella

By Mrs. C. N. Williamson

500—Love and Spite

By Adelaide Stirling

501—Her Husband's Secret

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

502—Fair Maid Marian

By Mrs. Emma Garrison Jones

503—A Lady in Black

By Florence Warden

504—Evelyn, the Actress

By Wenona Gilman

505—Selina's Love-story

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

506—A Secret Foe

By Gertrude Warden

507—A Mad Betrothal

By Laura Jean Libbey

508—Lottie and Victorine

By Lucy Randall Comfort

509—A Penniless Princess

By Emma Garrison Jones

510—Doctor Jack's Paradise Mine

By St. George Rathborne

513—A Sensational Case

By Florence Warden

514—The Temptation of Mary Barr

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

515—Tiny Luttrell (Author of "Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman")  

By E. W. Hornung

516—Florabel's Lover

By Laura Jean Libbey

517—They Looked and Loved

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

518—The Secret of a Letter

By Gertrude Warden

521—The Witch from India

By St. George Rathborne

522—A Spurned Proposal

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

523—A Banker of Bankersville

By Maurice Thompson

524—A Sacrifice of Pride

By Mrs. Louisa Parr

525—Sweet Kitty Clover

By Laura Jean Libbey

526—Love and Hate

By Morley Roberts

527—For Love and Glory

By St. George Rathborne

528—Adela's Ordeal

By Florence Warden

529—Hearts Aflame

By Louise Winter

530—The Wiles of a Siren

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

532—True to His Bride

By Emma Garrison Jones

533—A Forgotten Love

By Adelaide Stirling

534—Lotta, the Cloak Model

By Laura Jean Libbey

535—The Trifler

By Archibald Eyre

536—Companions in Arms

By St. George Rathborne

538—The Fighting Chance

By Gertrude Lynch

539—A Heart's Triumph

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

540—A Daughter of Darkness

By Ida Reade Allen

541—Her Evil Genius

By Adelaide Stirling

543—The Veiled Bride

By Laura Jean Libbey

544—In Love's Name

By Emma Garrison Jones

545—Well Worth Winning

By St. George Rathborne

546—The Career of Mrs. Osborne

By Helen Milecete

549—Tempted by Love

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

550—Saved from Herself

By Adelaide Stirling

551—Pity—Not Love

By Laura Jean Libbey

552—At the Court of the Maharaja

By Louis Tracy

LESLIE'S LOYALTY

CHAPTER I.

LESLIE LISLE.

Nobody ever goes to Portmaris; that is to say, nobody who is anybody. It lies—but no matter, ours shall not be the hand to ruin its simplicity by advertising its beauties and advantages, and directing the madding crowd to its sylvan retreat. At present the golden sands which line the bay are innocent of the negro troupe, the peripatetic conjurer, and the monster in human form who pesters you to purchase hideous objects manufactured from shells and cardboard.

A time may come when Portmaris will develop into an Eastbourne or a Brighton, a Scarborough or a Hastings; but, Heaven be praised, that time is not yet, and Portmaris, like an unconscious village beauty, goes on its way as yet ignorant of its loveliness.

At present there are about a dozen houses, most of them fishermen's cottages; a church, hidden in a hollow a mile away from the restless sea; and an inn which is satisfied with being an inn, and has not yet learned to call itself a hotel.

Two or three of the fisherfolk let lodgings, to which come those fortunate individuals who have quite by chance stumbled upon this out-of-the-way spot; and in the sitting-room of the prettiest of these unpretentious cottages was a young girl.

Her name was Leslie Lisle. She was nineteen, slim, graceful, and more than pretty. There is a type of beauty which, with more or less truth, is generally described as Irish. It has dark hair, blue eyes with long black lashes, a clear and colorless complexion of creamy ivory, and a chin that would seem pointed but for the exquisite fullness of the lips. It is a type which is more fascinating than the severe Greek, more "holding" than the voluptuous Spanish, more spirituel than the vivacious French; in short, it is a kind of beauty before which most men go down completely and forever vanquished, and this because the wonderful gray-blue eyes are capable of an infinity of expressions, can be grave one moment and brimming over with fun the next; because there lurks, even when they are most quiescent, a world of possibilities in the way of wit in the corners of the red lips; because the face, as you watch it, can in the course of a few minutes flash with spirit, melt with tenderness, and all the while remain the face of a pure, innocent, healthy, light-hearted girl.

The young men who crossed Leslie Lisle's path underwent a sad experience.

At first they were attracted by her beauty; in a few hours or days, as the case might be, they began to find the attraction lying somewhat deeper than the face; then they grew restless, unhappy, lost their appetites, got to lying awake of nights, and lastly went to pieces completely, and if they possessed sufficient courage, flung themselves perfectly wretched and overcome at the small feet of the slim, girlish figure which had become to them even that of the one woman in the world. And to do Leslie justice, she was not only always surprised, but distressed. She had said nothing, and what is more, looked nothing, to encourage them. She had been just herself, a frank yet modest English girl, with an Irish face, and that indescribable sweetness which draws men's hearts from their bosoms before they know what has happened to them.

She was seated at the piano in the sitting-room of the cottage which the fisherman who owned it had christened Sea View, and she was amusing herself and a particularly silent and morose parrot by singing some of the old songs and ballads which she had found in a rickety music-stand in the corner; and for all the parrot glanced at her disapprovingly with his glassy eye, she had a sufficiently sweet voice, and sang with more than the usual amount of feeling.

While she was in the middle of that famous but slightly monotonous composition, "Robin Grey," the door opened, and a tall, thin man entered.

This was Francis Lisle, her father. He was a man this side of fifty, but looked older in consequence, perhaps, of his hair, which was gray and scanty, a faded face, with a dreamy far away look in the faint blue eyes, and a somewhat bent form and dragging gait. He carried a portable easel in one hand, and held a canvas under his arm.

As he entered he looked round the room as if he had never seen it before, then set the easel up in a corner, placed the canvas on it upside down, and crossing his hands behind his back, stood with bent head gazing at it for some moments in silence. Then he said, in a voice which matched the dreamy face:

"Leslie, come here."

Leslie stopped short in the middle of the most heart-rending line of the cheerful ballad, and walked—no; glided? scarcely; it is difficult to describe how the girl got across the small room, so full of grace, so characteristic was her mode of progression, and putting both hands on his shoulders, leaned her cheek against his head.

"Back already, dear?" she said, and the tone fully indicated the position in which she stood toward her parent. "I thought you were going to make a long day of it."

"Yes, yes," he said, without taking his eyes from the sketch. "I did intend doing so. I started full of my subject and—er—inspired with hope, and I don't think I have altogether failed. It is difficult—very. The tone of that sky would fill a careless amateur with despair, but—but I am not careless. Whatever I may be I am not that. The secrets of art which she hides from the unthinking and—er—irreverent she confides to her true worshipers. Now, Leslie, look at that sky. Look at it carefully, critically, and tell me—do you not think I have caught that half tone, that delicious mingling of the chrome and the ultramarine? There is a wealth of form and color in that right hand corner, and I—yes, I think it is the best, by far the best and truest thing I have as yet done."

Leslie leaned forward, and softly, swiftly, placed the picture right side up.

It had not very much improved by the transposition. It was—well, to put it bluntly, a daub of the most awful description. Never since the world began had there ever, in nature, been anything like it. The average schoolboy libeling nature with a shilling box of colors could not have sinned more deeply. The sea was a brilliant washerwoman's blue, the hills were heaps of muddy ochre, the fishing vessels looked like blackbeetles struggling on their backs, there was a cow in the meadow in the foreground which would have wrung tears from any one who had ever set eyes on that harmless but necessary animal, and the bit of sky in the corner was utterly and completely indescribable.

Leslie looked at it with a sad little expression in her eyes, the pitying look one sees in the face of a woman whose life is spent in humoring the weakness of a beloved one; then she said, gently:

"It is very striking, papa."

"Striking!" repeated Francis Lisle. "Striking! I like that word. You, too, are an artist, my dear Leslie, though you never touch a brush. How well you know how to use the exact expression. I flatter myself that it is striking. I think I may say, without egotism, that no one, no real critic could look at that sketch—for it is a mere sketch—without being struck!"

"Yes, papa," she murmured, soothingly.

He shaded his eyes with his thin white hands in the orthodox fashion, and peered at the monstrosity.

"There is, if I may say so, an—er—originality in the treatment which would alone make the sketch interesting and valuable. Tell me, now, Leslie, what it is in it that catches your fancy most."

Leslie looked at it carefully.

"I—I think that heap of sea-weed nicely painted, papa," she said, putting her arm round his neck.

"Heap of sea-weed?" his brows knitted. "Heap of sea-weed? I don't see anything of the kind."

"There, papa," she said, pointing.

"My dear Leslie, I have always suspected that your sight was not perfect, that there was some defect in its range power; that is not a heap of sea-weed, but a fisherwoman mending her nets!"

"Of course! How stupid of me!" she said, quickly. "I'm afraid I am near-sighted, dear. But don't you think you have done enough for to-day? Why not put it away until to-morrow?"

"There is no to-morrow, Leslie," he said, gravely, as he got out his palette. "'Art is long and life is fleeting.' Never forget that, my dear. No, I can stipple on a little. I intend finishing this sketch, and making a miniature—a cabinet picture. It shall be worthy of a place among those exquisite studies of Foster's. And yet——," he sighed and pushed the hair from his forehead, "and yet I'll be bound that if I tried to sell it, I should not find a dealer to give me a few paltry pounds for it. So blind and prejudiced! No, they would not buy it, and possibly the Academy would refuse to exhibit it. Prejudice, prejudice! But art has its own rewards, thank Heaven! I paint because I must. Fame has no attraction. I am content to wait. Yes, though the recognition which is my due may come too late! It is often thus!"

The girl bent her beautiful head—she stood taller than the drooping figure of her father—and kissed, ah! how tenderly, pityingly, the gray hair.

Francis Lisle, Esquire, the younger son of an old Irish family, had been a dreamer from his youth up. He had started with a good education and a handsome little fortune; he had dreamed away the education, dreamed away the small fortune, dreamed away nearly all his life, and his great dream was that he was an artist. He couldn't draw a haystack, and certainly could not have colored it correctly even if by chance he had drawn it; but he was persuaded that he was a great artist, and he fancied that his hand transferred to the canvas the scenes which he attempted to paint.

And he was not unhappy. His wife had died when Leslie was a mite of a thing, and how he had managed to get on until Leslie was old enough to take care of him can never even be surmised; but she began to play the mother, the guardian, and protector to this visionary father of hers, at an extremely early age. She managed everything, almost fed and clothed him, and kept from him all those petty ills and worries which make life such a burden for most people.

They had no settled home, but wandered about, sometimes on the Continent, but mostly in England, and Francis Lisle had hundreds of sketches which were like nothing under heaven, but were supposed to be "ideas" for larger pictures, of places they had visited.

They had been at Portmaris a couple of months when we find them, and though Francis Lisle was just beginning to get tired of it, and restlessly anxious to be on the move again, Leslie was loth to leave. She had grown fond of the golden sands, the strip of pebbly beach, the narrow street broken by its wind-twisted trees, the green lanes leading to the country beyond, and still more fond of the simple-hearted fisher folk, who always welcomed her with a smile, and had already learned to call her Miss Leslie.

Indeed, Miss Lisle was a dangerous young woman, and the hearts of young and old, gentle and simple, went down before a glance of her gray-blue eyes, a smile from the mobile lips, a word from her voice which thrilled with a melody few could resist.

Francis Lisle went on daubing, his head on one side, a rapt, contented look on his pale, aristocratic face.

"Yes, this is going to be one of my best efforts," he said, with placid complacency. "Go and sing something, Leslie. I can always work better while you are singing. Music and painting are twin sisters. I adore them both."

Leslie went back to the piano with that peculiarly graceful motion of hers, and touched a note or two.

"Were there no letters this morning, dear?" she asked.

"Letters?" Lisle put his hand to his forehead as if rudely called back to earth from the empyrean. "Letters? No. Yes, I forgot. There was one. It was from Ralph Duncombe."

Leslie turned her head slightly, and the rather thick brows which helped the eyes in all their unconscious mischief straightened.

"From Ralph? What does he say?"

"I don't know," replied Lisle, placidly. "I can never read his letters; he writes so terribly plain a hand; its hardness jars upon me. I have it—somewhere?"

He searched his pockets reluctantly.

"No, I must have lost it. Does it matter very much?"

Leslie laughed softly.

"I don't know; but one generally likes to know what is in a letter."

"Well, then, I wish I could find it. I told the postman when he gave it to me that I should probably lose it, and that he had better bring it on to the house; but—well, I don't think he understood me. I often think that we speak an unknown language to these country people."

"Perhaps he did not hear you," said Leslie. "Sometimes, you know, dear, you think you have spoken when you have not uttered a word, but only thought."

"I dare say," he assented, dreamily. "Now I come to think of it, I fancy Duncombe said he was coming down here——."

The slender white hands which had been touching the keys caressingly stopped.

"Coming here, papa!"

"Yes. I think so. I'm not sure. Now, what could I have done with that letter?"

He made another search, failed to find it, shook his head as if dismissing the subject, and resumed his "work."

Leslie struck a chord, and opened her lips to sing, when the sound of the wheels belonging to the one fly in the place came down the uneven street. She paused to listen, then leaned sideways and looked through the window.

"The station fly!" she said. "And it has stopped at Marine Villa, papa. It must be another visitor. Fancy two visitors at the same time in Portmaris! It will go wild with excitement."

The cranky vehicle had pulled up at the opposite cottage, and Leslie, with mild, very mild, curiosity, got up from the piano and went to the window.

As she did so a man dressed in soft tweed got down from beside the driver, opened the fly-door, and gave his arm to a young man whose appearance filled Leslie's heart with pity; for he was a cripple. His back was bent, his face pale and gentle as a woman's, marked with lines which were eloquent of weary days, and still more weary nights; and in the dark eyes was that peculiar expression of sadness which a life of pain and suffering patiently borne sets as a seal.

The young fellow leaned on his stick and the man's arm, and looked round him, and his eye, dark and full of a soft penetration, fell upon the lovely face at the opposite window.

Leslie drew back, when it was too late, and breathed an exclamation of regret.

"Oh, papa!"

"What is the matter?" asked Lisle, vacantly.

"I am sorry!" she said. "He will think I was staring at him—and so I was. And that will seem so cruel to him, poor fellow."

"What is cruel? which poor fellow?" demanded Lisle with feeble impatience.

"Some one who has just got out of the fly, dear; a cripple, poor fellow; and he saw me watching him." And she sighed again.

"Eh?" said Lisle, as if he were trying to recollect something. "Ah, yes, I remember. Mrs. Whiting told me that he was expected some time to-day; they had a telegram saying he was coming."

"He? Who?" said Leslie, going back to the piano.

"Who?" repeated Lisle, as if he were heartily sorry he had continued the subject. "Why, this young man. Dear me, I forget his name and title——."

"Title? Poor fellow! Is he a nobleman, papa? That makes it seem so much worse, doesn't it?"

Lisle looked round at her helplessly.

"Upon my word, my dear," he said, "I do not wish to appear dense, but I haven't the least idea of what you are talking about, and——," he went on more quietly, as if he feared she were going to explain, "it doesn't matter. Pray sing something, and—and do not let us worry about things which do not concern us."

Leslie began to sing without another word.

CHAPTER II.

FATE.

The crippled young man, with the assistance of his companion, made his way into the sitting-room of Marine Villa; an invalid's chair was hauled from the top of the fly and carried in, and the young man sank into it with a faint sigh.

"Leave me, Grey," he said. "When Lord Auchester arrives let him come to me at once; and, Grey, be good enough to remember what I told you——."

"Yes, your grace," said the man; then, as his master lifted the soft brown eyes with gentle reproach, he added, correcting himself, "yes, sir."

The young man smiled faintly.

"That is better. Thanks."

The valet unlocked a morocco traveling case, and took out a vial and medicine chest.

"The medicine, your gra——, sir, I mean."

"Ah, yes, I forgot. Thank you," said the young man, and he took the draught with a weary patience. "Thanks. Let me know when his lordship arrives. No, I want nothing more."

The valet went out, shutting the door softly after him, and his master leaned his head upon his hand, and closed his eyes.

Fate had dealt very strangely with this young man. With one hand it had showered upon him most of the gifts which the sons of men set high store by; it had made him a duke, had given him palaces, vast lands, money in such abundance as to be almost a burden; and with the other hand, as if in scorn and derision of the thing called Man, Fate had struck him one of those blows under which humanity is crushed and broken.

A nurse had let him, when a child, slip from her arms, and the great Duke of Rothbury was doomed to go through life a stunted and crooked-back object, with the grim figure of pain always marching by his side, with the bitter knowledge that not all his wealth could prevent the people he met in the streets regarding him with curious and pitying glances, with the bitter sense that the poorest of the laborers on his estates enjoyed a better lot than his, and was more to be envied than himself.

He sat perfectly motionless for some minutes; then he opened his eyes and started slightly; Leslie had just begun to sing.

He wheeled his chair to the window, and set it open quietly, and, keeping behind the curtains, listened with evident pleasure.

The song was still floating across to him when a young man came marching up the street.

Youth is a glorious thing under any circumstances, but when it is combined with perfect health, good temper, a handsome face, and a stalwart form it is god-like in its force and influence.

The little narrow street of Portmaris seemed somehow to grow brighter and wider as the young man strode up it; his well-knit form swaying a little to right and left, his well-shaped head perfectly poised, his bright eyes glancing here and there with intelligent interest, the pleasure-loving lips whistling softly from sheer light-heartedness. He stopped as he came opposite Sea View, and listened to Leslie's song, nodding his head approvingly; then he caught sight of the "Marine Villa" on the opposite house, and walked straight into the little hall.

"Hallo, Grey," he said, and his voice rang, not hardly and unpleasantly, but with that clear golden timbre which only belongs to the voice of a man in perfect health. "Here you are, then! And how is——."

Grey smiled as he bent his head respectfully; everybody was glad to see the young man.

"Yes, my lord. Just got down. His gra——. We are pretty well considering the journey, my lord. He will see your lordship at once."

"All right," said the young fellow. "I rode as far as Northcliffe, but left the horse there, as I didn't know what sort of stables they'd have here."

"You were right, my lord," said Grey, in the approving tone of a confidential servant. "This seems a rare out-of-the-way place. And I should doubt there being a decent stable here."

"Ah, well, the duke will like it all the better for being quiet," the young fellow said.

Grey put his hand to his lips, and coughed apologetically.

"Beg pardon, my lord, but his gra——, that is—well, you'll excuse me, my lord, but we're down here quite incog., as you may say."

As Lord Auchester, staring at the man, was about to laugh, the clear, rather shrill voice of the invalid was heard from the room.

"Is that you, Yorke? Why do you not come in?"

The young fellow entered, and took the long thin hand the duke extended to him.

"Hallo, Dolph!" he said, lowering his voice. "How are you? What made you think of coming to this outlandish spot?"

The duke, still holding his cousin's hand, smiled up at him with a mixture of sadness and self raillery.

"I can't tell you, Yorke; I got tired of town, and told Grey to hunt up some place in Bradshaw that he had never heard of, some place right out of the beaten track, and he chose this."

"Poor unfortunate man!" said Lord Auchester, with a laugh.

"Yes, Grey suffers a great deal from my moods and humors; and so do other persons, yourself to wit, Yorke. It was very kind of you to come to me so soon."

"Of course I came," said Lord Auchester. "I wasn't very far off, you see."

"Fishing?" said the duke, with evident interest.

"Y-es; oh, yes," replied the other young man, quickly. "I rode over as far as Northcliffe——."

The duke sighed as his eyes wandered musingly over the stalwart, well-proportioned frame.

"You ought to have been in the army, Yorke," he said.

Lord Auchester laughed.

"So I should have been if they hadn't made the possession of brains a sine qua non; it seems you want brains for pretty nearly everything nowadays; and it's just brains I'm short of, you see, Dolph."

"You have everything else," said the duke, in a low voice.

He sighed and turned his head away; not that he envied his cousin his handsome face and straight limbs.

"You haven't told me what you wanted me for, Dolph," said Lord Auchester, after a pause, during which both men had been listening half unconsciously to the sweet voice in the cottage opposite.

"I wanted—nothing," said the duke.

"There is nothing I can do for you?"

"Nothing; unless," with a sigh and a wistful smile, "unless you can by the wave of a magician's wand change this crooked body of mine for something like your own."

"I would if I could, Dolph," said the other, bending over him, and laying a pair of strong hands soothingly on the invalid's bent shoulders.

"I know that, Yorke. But you cannot, can you? I dare say you think I am a peevish, discontented wretch, and that I ought, as the poor Emperor of Germany said, to bear my pain without complaining——."

"No, Dolph; I think you complain very little, and face the music first rate," put in the other.

"Thanks. I try to most times, and I could succeed better than I do if I were always alone, but sometimes——," he sighed bitterly. "Why is it that the world is so false, Yorke? Are there no honest men besides you and Grey, and half a dozen others I could mention? And are there no honest women at all?"

Yorke Auchester raised his eyebrows and laughed.

"What's wrong with the women?" he said.

The duke leaned his head upon his hand, and partially hid his face, which had suddenly become red.

"Everything is wrong with them, Yorke," he said, gravely and in a low voice. "You know, or perhaps you do not know, how I esteem, reverence, respect a woman; perhaps because I dare not love them."

Yorke Auchester nodded.

"If all the men felt as you do about women there would be no bad ones in the world, Dolph," he said.

"To me there is something sacred in the very word. My heart expands, grows warm in the presence of a good woman. I cannot look at a beautiful girl without thinking—don't misunderstand me, Yorke."

"No, no, old chap!"

"I love, I reverence them; and yet they have made me fly from London, have caused me almost to vow that I will never go back; that I will hide my misshapen self for the rest of my weary days——."

"Why Dolph——."

"Listen," said the duke. "Look at me, Yorke. Ah, it is unnecessary. You know what I am. A thing for women to pity, to shudder at—not to love! And yet"—he hid his face—"some of them have tried to persuade me that I—I—could inspire a young girl with love; that I—I—oh, think of it, Yorke!—that I had only to offer myself as a husband to the most beautiful, the fairest, straightest, queenliest of them, to be accepted!"

Yorke Auchester leaned over him.

"You take these things too seriously, Dolph," he said, soothingly. "It's—it's the way of the world, and you can't better it; you must take it as it comes."

"The way of the world! That a girl—young, beautiful, graceful—should be sold by her mother and father, should be willing to sell herself—ah, Yorke!—to a thing like me. Is that the way of the world? What a wicked, heartless, vicious world, then; and what an unhappy wretch am I! What fools they are, too, Yorke! They think it is so fine a thing to wear a ducal coronet! Ha, ha!" He laughed with sad bitterness. "So fine, that they would barter their souls to the evil one to feel the pressure of that same coronet on their brows, to hear other women call them 'Your Grace.' Oh, Yorke, what fools! How I could open their eyes if they would let me! Look at me. I am the Duke of Rothbury, Knight of the Garter—poor garter!" and he looked at his thin leg—"and what else? I almost forget some of my titles; and I would swap them all for a straight back and stalwart limbs like yours. But, Yorke, to share those titles, how many women would let me limp to the altar on their arms!"

He laughed again, still more bitterly.

"Sometimes, when some sweet-faced girl, with the look of an angel in her eyes, with a voice like a heavenly harmony, is making what they call 'a dead set' at me, I have hard work to restrain myself from telling her what I think of her and those who set her at me. Yorke, it is this part of the business which makes my life almost unendurable, and it is only by running away from every one who knows, or has heard of, the 'poor' Duke of Rothbury that I can put up with existence."

"Poor old chap," murmured Lord Auchester.

"Just now," continued the duke, "as we drove up to the door, I caught sight of a beautiful girl at the window opposite. I saw her face grow soft with pity, with the angelic pity of a woman, which, though it stings and cuts into one like a cut from a whip, I try to be grateful for. She pitied me, not knowing who and what I am. Tell her that I am the Duke of Rothbury, and in five minutes or less that angelic look of compassion will be exchanged for the one which you see on the face of the hunter as his prey comes within sight. She will think, 'He is ugly, crooked, maimed for life; but he is a man, and I can therefore marry him; he is a duke and I should be a duchess.' And so, like a moral poison, like some plague, I blight the souls of the best and purest. Listen to her now; that is the girl singing. What is it? I can hear the words."

He held up his hand. Leslie was singing, quite unconscious of the two listeners.

"My sweet girl love with frank blue eyes, Though years have passed I see you still; There, where you stood beside the mill, Beneath the bright autumnal skies. Though years have passed I love you yet; Do you still remember, or do you forget?"

"A nice voice," said Yorke Auchester, approvingly.

"Yes; the voice of a girl-angel. No doubt she is one. She needs only to be informed that an unmarried duke is within reach, and she'll be in a hurry to drop to the earth, and in her hurry to reach and secure him will not mind dragging her white wings in the mud."

"Women are built that way," said Yorke Auchester, concisely.

The duke sighed.

"Oh, yes, they are all alike. Yorke, what a fine duke you would have made! What a mischievous, spiteful old cat Fate is, to make me a duke and you only a younger son! How is it you don't hate and envy me, Yorke?"

"Because I'm not a cad and a beast, I suppose," replied the young fellow, pleasantly. "Why, Dolph, you have been the best friend a man ever had——."

"Most men hate their best friends," put in the duke, with a sad smile.

"Where should I have been but for you?" continued Yorke Auchester, ignoring the parenthesis. "You have lugged me out of Queer Street by the scruff of my neck half a dozen times. Every penny I ever had came from you, and I've had a mint, a complete mint—and, by the way, Dolph, I want some more."

The duke laughed wearily.

"Take as much as you want, Yorke," he said. "But for you, the money would grow and grow till it buried and smothered me. I cannot spend it; you must help me."

"I will; I always have," said Yorke Auchester, laughing. "It's a pity you haven't got some expensive fad, Dolph—pictures, or coins, or first editions, or racing."

The duke shrugged his shoulders.

"I have only one fad," he said; "to be strong and straight, and that not even the Rothbury money can gratify. But I do get some pleasure out of your expenditure. I fancy you enjoy yourself."

"I do."

"Yes? That is well. Some day you will marry——."

Yorke Auchester's hand dropped from the duke's shoulder.

"Marry some young girl who loves you for yourself alone."

"She's not likely to love me for anything else."

"All the better. Oh, Heaven! What would I not give for such a love as that?" broke out the duke.

As the passionate exclamation left his lips the door opened, and Mrs. Whiting, the landlady, came in. Her face was flushed; she was in a state of nervous excitement, caused by a mixture of curiosity and fear.

"I beg your pardon, your grace," she faltered, puffing timorously; "but did you ring?"

The duke looked straight at the woman, and then up at Yorke Auchester.

"No," said Yorke.

"I beg your grace's pardon," the curious woman began, stammeringly; but Grey coming behind her seized her by the arm, and, none too gently, swung her into the passage and closed the door.

The duke looked down frowningly.

"They've found you out, Dolph," said Yorke.

The duke was silent for a moment, then he sighed.

"Yes, I suppose so; I do not know how. I am sorry. I had hoped to stay here in peace for a few weeks, at any rate. But I must go now. Better to be in London where everybody knows me, and has, to an extent, grown accustomed to me."

He stopped short, and his face reddened.

"Yorke," he said, "do you think she knew which of us was the duke?"

"I don't know," replied Yorke; "I don't think she did."

"She would naturally think it was you if she didn't know," said the duke, thoughtfully, his eyes resting on the tall form of his cousin, who had gone to the window and was looking at the cottage opposite. "She would never imagine me, the cripple. Don't some of these simple folk think that a king is always at least six feet and a half, and that he lives and sleeps in a crown? Yes, you look more like a duke than I do, Yorke; and I wish to Heaven you were!"

"Thanks," said Yorke Auchester, not too attentively. "What a pretty little scrap of a place this is, Dolph, and—ah——." He stopped short. "By Jove! Dolph, what a lovely girl! Is that the one of whom you were speaking just now?"

The duke put the plain muslin curtain aside and looked.

Leslie had come to the window, and stood, all unconscious of being watched, with her arms raised above her head, in the act of putting a lump of sugar between the bars of the parrot's cage.

The duke gazed at her, at first with an expression of reverent admiration.

"Ah, yes, beautiful!" he murmured; then his face hardened and darkened. "How good, how sweet, how innocent she looks! And yet I'll wager all I own that she is no better than the rest. That with all her angelic eyes and sweet childlike lips, she will be ready to barter her beauty, her youth, her soul, for rank and wealth." He groaned, and clutched his chair with his long, thin, and, alas! claw-like hands. "I cannot bear it. Yorke, I meant to conceal my title, and while I staid down here pretend to be just a poor man, an ordinary commoner, one who would not tempt any girl to play fast and loose with her soul. I should have liked to have made a friend of that girl; to have seen her, talked with her every day, without the perpetual, ever-present dread that she would try and make me marry her. But it is too late, it seems. This woman here knows, everybody in the place knows, or will know. It is too late, unless——."

He stopped and looked up.

"Yorke!"

"Hallo!" said that young fellow, scarcely turning his head.

"Will you—do you mind—you say you owe me something?" faltered the duke, eagerly.

"Why, of course," assented Yorke Auchester, and he came and bent over him. "What's the matter, Dolph? What is it you want me to do?"

"Just this," said the duke, laying his hand—it trembled—on the strong arm; "be the Duke of Rothbury for a time, and let this miserable cripple sink into the background. You will not refuse? Say it is a whim; a mere fad. Sick people," he smiled, bitterly, "are entitled to these whims and fads, you know, and I've not had many. Humor this one; be the duke, and save me for once from the humiliation which every young girl inflicts upon me."

Yorke Auchester's brow darkened, and he bit his lip.

"Rather a rum idea, old chap, isn't it?" he said, with an uneasy laugh.

"Call it so if you like," responded the duke, with, if possible, increased eagerness. "Are you going to refuse me, Yorke? By Heaven!"—his thin face flushed—"it is the first, the only thing I have ever asked of you——."

"Hold on!" interrupted Yorke Auchester, almost sternly. "I did not say I would refuse; you know that I cannot. You have been the best friend——."

The duke raised his hand.

"I knew you would not. Ring the bell, will you?" His voice, his hand, as he pointed to the bell, trembled.

Yorke Auchester strode across the room and rang the bell.

Grey entered.

"Grey," said the duke, in a low voice, "how came this woman to know my name?"

"It was a mistake, your grace," said Grey, troubled and remorseful. "I let it slip when I was wiring, and the idiot at the telegraph station in London must have wired it down to the people on his own account. But—but, your grace, she doesn't know much after all, for she didn't know which is the dook, as she calls it, beggin' your pardon, your grace."

The duke nodded, clasping his hands impatiently and eagerly.

"Ring the bell. Stand aside, and say nothing," he said, in a tone of stern command which he seldom used.

The landlady, who, like Hamlet, was fat and scant of breath, was heard panting up the stairs, knocked timidly, and, in response to the duke's "Come in," entered, and looked from one to the other, in a fearsome, curious fashion.

"Did you ring?"

She would not venture to say "Your grace" this time.

The duke smiled at her.

"Yes," he said, gravely but pleasantly. "His Grace the Duke of Rothbury will stay with me for a few days if you can give him a room, Mrs.—Mrs.——."

"Whiting, sir, if you please. Oh, certainly, sir," and she dropped a courtesy to Yorke Auchester. "Certainly your grace. It's humble and homely like, but——."

Grey edged her gently and persuasively out of the room, and when he had followed her the duke leaned back his chair, and looking up at the handsome face of his cousin, laughed.

"It's like a scene in one of the new farces, isn't it, Yorke—I beg your pardon, Godolphin, Duke of Rothbury?"

Farce? Yes. But at that moment began the tragedy of Leslie Lisle's life.

CHAPTER III.

RALPH DUNCOMBE.

The "great artist" went on painting, making the sketch more hideously and idiotically unnatural every minute, and was so absorbed in it that Leslie could not persuade him to leave it even for his lunch, and he maundered from the table to the easel with a slice of bread and butter in his hand, or held between his teeth as if he were a performing dog.

Leslie had played and sung to him until she was tired, and she cast a wistful glance from the window toward the blue sky and sunlit sea.

"Won't you leave it for a little while and come out on the beach, dear?" she said, coaxingly.

But Francis Lisle shook his head.

"No, no. I am just in the vein, Leslie; nothing would induce me to lose this light. But I wish you would go. It—it fidgets and unsettles me to have any one in the room who wants to be elsewhere. Go out for your walk; when you come back you will see what I have made of it; I flatter myself you will be surprised."

If she were not it would only be because she had seen so many similar pictures of his.

She put on her hat and dainty little Norfolk jacket of Scotch homespun, and went out with a handkerchief of his she was hemming in her pocket.

The narrow street was bathed in sunshine; at the open doors some of the fisher wives were sitting or standing at their eternal knitting, children were playing noisily in the road-way. The women, one and all, looked up and smiled as she appeared in the open doorway, and one or two little mites ran to her with the fearless joyousness which is the child's indication of love.

Leslie lifted one tiny girl with blue eyes and clustering curls and kissed her, patted the bare heads of the rest, and nodded pleasantly to the mothers.

"Mayn't we come with 'oo?" asked the mite; but Leslie shook her head.

"Not this afternoon, Trotty," she said, and ran away from them down the street which led sheer on to the beach.

As a rule she allowed the children to accompany her, and play round her as she sat at work, but this afternoon she wanted to be alone.

The arrival of the letter which her father had lost had disturbed and troubled her.

The man from whom it had come was a certain Ralph Duncombe, and he was one of the many unfortunates who had fallen in love with her; but, unlike the rest, he had not been content to take "No" for an answer, and gone away and got over it, or drowned himself, but had persisted in hoping and striving.

She had met him at a sea-side boarding house two years before this, had been pleasant and kind to him, as she was to everybody, but had meant nothing more than kindliness, and was surprised and pained when he had asked her to be his wife, and declined to take a refusal.

Since that time he had cropped up at intervals, like a tax collector, and it seemed as if Leslie would never convince him that there was no hope for him. His persistence distressed her very much, but she did not know what she could do. He was the sort of man who, having set his heart upon a thing, would work with a dogged earnestness until he had got it; and could not be made to understand that women's hearts are not to be won, like a town, by a siege, however long and stringent it may be.

She went down to the breakwater, and sat down in her favorite spot and got out her handkerchief; and two minutes afterward there was a patter-patter on the stones behind her, and a small black-and-tan terrier leaped on her lap with a joyous yap.

She laughed and hugged him for a moment, then forced him down beside her.

"Oh, Dick, what a wicked Dick you are! You've run the needle into my finger, sir!" she said. "Look there." And she held out a tapering forefinger with one little red drop on it.

Dick smiled in dog fashion, and attempted to bite the finger, but to his surprise and disgust Leslie refused to play.

"I'm too busy, Dick," she said, gravely. "I want to finish this handkerchief; besides, it's too hot. Suppose you coil yourself up like a good little doggie, and go to sleep——. Well, if you must you must, I suppose!" And she let him snuggle into her lap, where, seeing that she really meant it, he immediately went to sleep.

It was a lovely afternoon. There was no one on the beach excepting herself, and all was silent save for the drowsy yawing of the gulls and the heavy boom of the tide as it went out, for the sea was very seldom calm at Portmaris, and in the least windy of days there was generally a ground-swell on.

Leslie sat and worked, and thought, thought mostly of Mr. Ralph Duncombe, her persistent suitor; but once or twice the remembrance of the deformed cripple who had come to lodge at Marine Villa crossed her mind, and she was thinking of him pityingly when the sound of footsteps crunching firmly and uncompromisingly over the pebbles made her start, and caused the terrier to leap up with the fury of its kind.

Leslie's brows came together as she looked up.

A middle-sized young man, with broad shoulders and a rather clumsy but steady gait, was coming down the beach. He was not a good-looking man. He had a big head and red hair, a large mouth and a square jaw; his feet and hands were also large, and there was in his air and manner something which indicated aggressiveness and obstinacy.

Sharp men who had seen him as a boy had said, "That chap will get on," and, unlike most prophets, they had been correct; Ralph Duncombe had "got on." He had started as an errand boy in a city office, and had risen step by step until he had become a partner. Rawlings & Co. had always been well thought of in the city, but Rawlings and Duncombe had now become respected and eminent.

His square, resolute face flushed as he saw her, but the hand with which he took off his hat was as steady as a rock.

"Good-morning, Miss Lisle," he said, making his voice heard above the dull roar of the sea and the shrill barking of the terrier.

Leslie held out one hand while she held the furiously struggling Dick with the other.

He took her hand in his huge fist, and dropped heavily on the shingle beside her.

"I didn't know you had a dog," he said, glancing at her and then at the dog, and then at the sea, as a man does who is so much head-over-heels in love that he cannot bear the glory of his mistress' face all at once.

"I haven't," said Leslie, laughing in the slow, soft way which her adorers found so bewitching—and agonizing. "He doesn't really belong to me, though he pretends that he does. He is the abandoned little animal of Mrs. Merrick, our landlady; but he will follow me about and make a nuisance of himself. Be quiet, Dick, or I shall send you home."

"I'm not surprised," said Ralph Duncombe, with a slight flush, and still avoiding her eyes. "I can sympathize with Dick."

Leslie colored, and took up her work, leaving Dick to wander gingerly round the visitor and smell him inquisitively.

"You got my letter, Miss Leslie?"

"No," she said. "I am very sorry; but papa lost it."

He smiled as if he were not astonished.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "It only said that I was coming and—here I am."

"I—I will go and tell papa; you will come and have some lunch?"

"No don't get up," he said, quickly putting out his hand to stay her. "I've had my lunch, and I can go and see Mr. Lisle presently if——," he paused. "Miss Leslie, I suppose you know why I have come down here?"

Leslie bent her head over her work. She could guess. Such a man as Mr. Ralph Duncombe was not likely to come down to such a place as Portmaris in obedience to a mere whim.

"I've come down because I said that I would come about this time," he went on, slowly and firmly, as if he had well rehearsed his speech—as, indeed, he had. "I'm a man who, when he has set his heart upon anything, doesn't change or give it up because he doesn't happen to get it all at once. I've set my heart upon making you my wife, Miss Leslie——."

Leslie's face flushed, and she made a motion as if to get up, but sank back again with a faint sigh of resignation.

"That's been my keenest wish and desire since I saw you two years ago; and it's just as keen, no less and no more, as it was the first half hour I spent in your society."

"You—you told me this before, Mr. Duncombe," said Leslie, not angrily nor impatiently, but very softly.

"I know," he assented. "And you told me that it couldn't be. And I suppose most men would have been satisfied—or dissatisfied, and given it up. But I'm not made like that. I shouldn't be where I am and what I am if I were. I dare say you think I'm obstinate."

The faintest shadow of a smile played on Leslie's lips.

"Yes!" she said. "But—but may I not be obstinate, too?" pleadingly.

"No," he said, gravely. "You are a woman, a girl, little more than a child, and I'm a man, a man who has fought his way in the world, and knows what it is; and that makes it different."

"But——."

"Wait a minute," he said. "You said 'no' because—well, because I'm not good-looking, because I haven't the taking way with me which some men have; in short, because there's nothing about me that would be likely to take a romantic girl's fancy——."

Leslie laughed softly.

"Who told you that I am romantic, Mr. Duncombe?" she said.

"All girls—young girls who don't know the world—are romantic," he said, as if he were remarking that the world is round, and that two and two make four. "You look at the outside of things, and because I'm not handsome and a—swell—you think you couldn't bring yourself to love me, and that I'm not worth loving."

Leslie shook her head.

"I respect you very much. I like you, Mr. Duncombe," she said, in a low voice.

"Very well. That's all I ask," he retorted, promptly. "Be my wife and I'll change your respect into liking, your liking into love. I'm satisfied with that. When a man's starving he is thankful for half a loaf."

He didn't plead his cause at all badly, and Leslie's gray eyes melted and grew moist.

"Don't shake your head," he said. "Just listen to me first. You know I love you. You can't doubt that. If you did, and you knew what I've given up to come down here, you wouldn't doubt any longer. And you wouldn't if you knew what this love of mine costs me. A business man wants all his wits about him if he means to succeed; he wants all his thoughts and energies for his business; and for the last two years my wits and my thoughts have been wandering after you. It's a wonder that I have succeeded; but I have. Miss Leslie, though I'm plain to look at, I believe I've got brains. If I can't offer you a title——."

Leslie smiled; it was so likely that anyone would offer her a title!

"I can at least make you a rich woman."

Her face flushed.

"Mr. Duncombe——."

"I know what you are going to say. All girls declare that they don't care for money, and they mean it. But that's nonsense. A beautiful woman's beautiful whether she's poor or rich, but she's more likely to be happy with plenty of money. And you shall have plenty. I am a rich man now, as times go, and I mean to be richer. I've been working these two years with one object before me. I've made the money solely that I might become less unworthy to offer myself. Miss Leslie, my heart is yours already, such as it is. Be my wife, and share my home and fortune with me!"

Leslie's lips trembled.

"Oh, if I could!" she murmured, almost inaudibly. "I am so sorry, so sorry!"

He took up a pebble, looked hard at it, and cast it from him.

"You mean that you can't love me?" he said, rather hoarsely.

Her silence gave assent.

He drew a long breath.

"I expected you to say that, but I thought I should persuade you to—try and trust yourself to me, and wait for the love to come." He paused a moment. "Miss Leslie, do you ever think of the future?"

"Of the future?" She turned her startled eyes on his face, grave almost to sternness.

"Yes. Forgive me if I speak plainly. You and your father are alone in the world."

"Yes, ah, yes!" dropped from her parted lips.

"And he—well, even now it is you who are the protector; some day—Leslie, it makes my heart ache to think of you alone in the world, alone and poor. I know that the little he has goes with him. Don't be angry! I am thinking only of you. I cannot help thinking of you and your future. If you would say 'yes,' if you would promise to be my wife, not only would your future be secure, but your present, his present, would be easier, happier; for your father's sake if not for your own——."

He stopped, for Leslie had risen, and stood looking down at him, her lips quivering, her hands clasped tightly.

"No, no!" she panted; "not even for—for his sake! Oh, I could not! I could not!"

He arose. His face was pale, making his red hair more scarlet by contrast.

"I understand," he said. "It isn't that you do not love me, but that you—well, yes, dislike me!"

"No!"

"Yes, that's it," he said, his eyes resting for a moment on the lovely face with the wistful, hungry, half fierce look of a famishing man denied the crust which might save his life. Then his eyes sank to the stones. "I see now that I have been a fool to go on hoping, that my case is hopeless. Don't"—for she had shrunk from his almost savage tone—"don't be afraid. I am not going to bother you any more. I wish I could say that I am going to give up loving you; but I can't do that. Something tells me," he struck his breast, as if he were glad of something to strike, "that I shall go on loving you till I die! See here, Les—Miss Lisle. It's evident that I can't be your husband; but I can be your friend. No,"—for she turned her head away—"no, I don't mean that I am going to hang about you and pester you. I couldn't. The sight of you would be torture to me. I hope—yes, I hope I sha'n't see you for years. But what I want to say is this; that if ever you need a friend remember that there is one man in the world who would give his right hand to serve you. Remember that at any time—any time, in one year, two, or when you are old and gray—that you have only to say 'Come!' to bring me like a faithful dog to your feet. That time will never come, you think. Very good. But still you may need me. If you do send to me. I devote my life to you—oh, there's no merit in it. I can't help it. I'm romantic in a way, you see." He smiled with bitter self-scorn for his weakness. "You are the one woman in the world to me. Your case is mine, your friends shall be mine, your foes mine. If you need a protector send for me; if one wrongs you, and you want revenge, send to me, and as there is a heaven above us, I will come at your call to help to avenge you."

His face was white, his eyes gleaming under their red brows. So transformed was he by the master passion that if any one of his city friends had seen him at that moment they would scarcely have recognized him.

Ralph Duncombe talking the "rant" of melodrama! Impossible!

Leslie drew back, her eyes fixed on him in a fascinated kind of gaze, her bosom heaving.

He made an evident effort to regain his self-command, and succeeded. With a long breath he allowed his face to regain its usual hard, self-possessed expression.

"I have frightened you," he said, still rather hoarsely, but calmly. "Forgive me. I told you how I loved you, and you see a man doesn't tear from his heart the hope that has grown there for two years without feeling it. I am going now. You can make any excuse to your father, or you need not tell him you have seen me. Good-by—Leslie! It's the last time I shall call you so."

He held out his hand. It was firm as a rock, and gripped hers so tightly that she winced.

"I've hurt you," he said; "I, who would lay down my life to save you a moment's pain." He looked at his hand. "It was my ring. Ah!" he exclaimed, as if an idea had occurred to him, and he drew the ring from his finger. "Take this," he said, and he took her hand, opened it, and placing the ring on her palm, closed her fingers over it gently and yet firmly, as if he would accept no refusal. "If ever you need a friend, either for yourself or another, if ever you need to be avenged on a foe, send this ring to me—it will not be necessary to send a word with it—and I will come to you. Good-by!"

He raised her hand toward his lips, then with a sound that was half sigh, half groan, he let it fall, and without looking round climbed the beach and was lost to sight.

CHAPTER IV.

THE NEW DUKE.

The expression on Yorke Auchester's face as his cousin introduced him as his grace, the Duke of Rothbury beggars description.

He stared at the duke and colored, with a mixture of amazement and annoyance, which caused the duke to lean back in his chair and laugh; he did not often laugh.

"That was neatly done, Yorke," he said. "It isn't often a man is made a duke so easily."

"N-o," said Yorke; "but—but it's rather a large order, Dolph," and he turned to the window with something like a frown on his handsome face.

"Not at all," said the duke, cheerfully and airily. "You will find it easy and natural enough after the first half hour. There is very little difference between the duke and the dustman nowadays; indeed, if the dustman can only talk and manage to get into Parliament he is often a greater man than the duke, and he is quite certain to put on more 'side.' Come, Yorke, you are not angry?"

"No, no!" responded Yorke Auchester; "rather surprised, that's all. My elevation is somewhat sudden, you see," and he laughed. "The whim seems to give you pleasure, and it won't hurt me, and it won't last long. You only want me to take your place while you are down here?"

"Just so," said the duke. "I'm afraid you couldn't manage it in London. 'That poor cripple, Rothbury,' is too well known there. Seriously, my dear Yorke, I am very much obliged to you. You have made it possible for me to enjoy a few weeks of quiet and repose. These simple folk won't take any notice, after the first day or two, of a hunchback who is only a common Mr.—let me see; what shall I call myself—Brown, Jones, Robinson? No; there are quite enough of those honored names in the directory already. I'll call myself Temple; there is a Temple in the family nomenclature. Yes; Mr. Temple. There is no fear of our little arrangement becoming known. I'm not one of those men who delight in seeing their coat of arms emblazoned on everything they wear and use. I don't think there is a coronet to be found anywhere about me, and Grey is the pink and pattern of discretion. You can wear the lion's skin—poor lion!—down here at Portmaris in perfect security. Be a good duke, Yorke. Keep up the honor of the old title." He laughed again. "At any rate, you will look every inch of one. And now about that money—a duke must have the means of keeping up his state, you know. Will you hand me up that dispatch box, or shall I ring for Grey?"

Yorke Auchester placed the writing case on the table, and the duke took out his check book.

"How much shall it be, Yorke?" he asked, without looking up, and with a certain shyness, as if it were he who was about to receive the money instead of giving it.

Yorke Auchester looked down at him with an expression on his face which made it nice to look at.

"You are very good to me, Dolph," he said. "It is only the other day you sent me——."

"Sufficient for the day only is the check thereof," cut in the duke, as if to stop any thanks. "I dare say that is all spent."

"It is, indeed," assented the young man, candidly.

The duke laughed easily.

"Who cares? Not you, who, I dare say, have had your enjoyment out of it; not I, who have more money than I know what to do with. How much? Shall we say a thousand, Yorke?"

Yorke Auchester's face flushed.

"I should like to say it is too much," he said. "But you wouldn't believe me if I did, Dolph."

The duke smiled.

"I certainly should not. I can guess how quickly money flies when one is young and strong, blessed with youth's appetite for pleasure."

He filled in the check in a sharp, pointed hand and gave it to his cousin.

"There you are. You must spend some of it down here for the honor of the name."

Yorke laughed.

"All right," he said, "though I don't quite know what I can buy. Sixpence in periwinkles would go a long way."

"Yes," said the duke; "that is what I find. Money is a burden and a nuisance if you don't know how to get rid of it. Suppose you buy half a crown's worth of winkles and a lobster or two."

When Grey came in with the lunch he was surprised to find his master in so bright a humor.

"You quite understand the arrangement between Lord Auchester and me, Grey?" said the duke.

"Yes, your gra—sir."

The duke smiled.

"My name is Temple, Grey," he said; "this gentleman is the Duke of Rothbury. Don't forget that, and don't, by a slip, let the cat out of the bag. I want to be quiet, and to avoid the worry of being called upon and stared at while I am down here. You're sure you understand, Grey?"

"Quite, sir; oh, quite," said Grey, who was an admirable servant; and in addition to being, as the duke had said, the pink and pattern of discretion, had lived long enough with his grace to know him thoroughly, and to appreciate a good master, who, with all his whims and fads, was tenderness and liberality personified.

"Of course you do," said the duke. "You must be as glad of a little quiet as I can be, and we shall get it down here under this arrangement. Now, mind, be careful and keep the secret. Have you brought up my beef tea? Very well, you need not wait."

Grey wheeled his master to the table, cast a glance of respectful astonishment at Lord Auchester, which meant, "You and I must humor him, of course, my lord," and left the room.

"A nice lunch, isn't it, Yorke?" said the duke, looking round the table. "I hope you will enjoy it. You are nearly always hungry, aren't you?" and he sighed as he smiled.

"Quite always," assented Yorke Auchester. "Chops, soles, and a custard pudding. Right. Sure you won't have any, Dolph?"

The duke shook his head.

"This is as much as I can digest," he said, tapping the basin before him indifferently. "Now tell me the news, Yorke—your grace."

Yorke laughed.

"News? I don't think there's any you don't know."

"Not London news, I dare say," said the duke; "though I don't know much of that. I don't go out more often than I am obliged to. I don't dance, you see," he smiled, "and if I go to the theater I find that I distract the attention of the audience from what is going on upon the stage. I suppose they consider me as interesting, as good, if not better than any play. And as to plays, there aren't many good ones now. The last time I went was to that burlesque at the Diadem Theater, and everybody seemed 'gone,' as you call it, on that dancer. What's her name, eh?"

Yorke Auchester was in the act of disboning his second sole. He stopped and looked up, paused for a moment with a rather singular expression on his frank, handsome face.

"Finetta, do you mean?" he said, slowly.

"Yes, that's the name, I think," said the duke, stirring his beef tea as if he hated it; "so called, I suppose, because she has finished so many good men and true. They tell me that she has completely ruined poor Charlie Farquhar. Is that so, Yorke?"

Yorke seemed very much ingrossed in his sole.

"Oh, Farquhar!" he said. "Yes, he is stone-broke; but I don't know that Fin—I mean Finetta—has had so much to do with it. Charlie was under the delusion that he understood horses, and——."

"I see," said the duke. "Poor lad! I suppose if I offered to help him he would be quite offended?"

"I don't know. You might try," said Yorke, dryly.

"I'll see. But about this same Finetta. She was pretty——."

Yorke Auchester looked up with a laugh. It was not a particularly merry one.

"Only pretty?"

"Well, yes, to my eyes; but I'm rather particular and hard to please, I'll admit. Oh, yes, she was pretty, and she danced," he smiled, "yes, she danced without doubt. The young men in the stalls seemed infatuated; but I didn't fall down and worship with the rest. Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, though I'm not much more than your age. Anyhow, a very little of Mlle. Finetta goes a long way with me. Do you know her, Yorke?"

"Oh, everybody knows Finetta," replied Yorke Auchester, carelessly—a little too carelessly.

"And some, it seems, like poor Charlie Farquhar, know her not wisely but too well. Well, I've not been to the theater since, and that's six weeks ago. Is that chop tender?"

"First rate; try it."

"I dare not; but I enjoy seeing you eat it. I've often had thoughts of having a man with a good appetite that I might have the pleasure of seeing him eat a square meal while I sit cursing my beef tea and gruel. The night I went to the Diadem I took Eleanor——."

Yorke Auchester suspended his fork half way to his mouth, and looked at his cousin.

"Oh," he said, and whatever the "Oh" might have been intended to mean it was singularly dull and inexpressive.

"Yes, it was her birthday, and she asked me to take her. That was kind of her, wasn't it?"

"Was it?" said Yorke, dryly.

"Well, I think so. You mean that most young girls would like to go to the theater with the Duke of Rothbury, or for the matter of that any other duke—unmarried; but that's because they would go with the hope of repeating the visit some day as his duchess. But Eleanor knows that I should not marry her; we have come to a plain understanding on the subject."

"I see," said Yorke Auchester. "I suppose this is Dartmoor mutton? It's very good."

"I dare say," assented the duke, with a smile. "But to return to my mutton, which is Eleanor. It was her birthday, and I took her to the theater and gave her a small present; the Rothbury pearls."

"Some persons would call an elephant small," remarked Yorke, laconically.

"Did—did you give her anything, Yorke?" asked the duke, almost shyly, ignoring the comments.

Yorke Auchester took a draught of the admirable claret which Grey had brought down with him, before replying.

"I?" he said, carelessly. "No. Why should I? What would be the use. She doesn't expect anything better than a penwiper or a shilling prayer book from a pauper like me, and she has tin enough to buy a million of 'em if she wants them," and he attacked the custard.

The duke leaned back in his chair, and looked at the handsome face of his cousin, with its frank and free, and happily devil-may-care expression.

"I've a notion that Eleanor would value anything in the way of a penwiper or a prayer book you might give her, Yorke," he said.

"Not she. It's only your fancy."

"I think not," said the duke.

He was silent for a moment, then he said, thoughtfully and gravely:

"At the risk of repeating myself, I will say once more that it is a pity you are not the Duke of Rothbury, Yorke."

"Thanks, but a better man's got the berth, you see."

"And a still greater pity that you can't be the future one. But you can't, can you, Yorke?"

"Not while Uncle Eustace and his two boys come before me, and as they are all as healthy as plowboys, and likely to live to the eighties, every one of 'em, there doesn't seem much chance, Dolph!"

"No," said the duke, in a low voice. "It's rather hard on the British Peerage that the present Duke of Rothbury should be a hunchback and a cripple, and that the next should be a miser, while the young man who would adorn the title——."

"Should be a penniless young scamp," put in Yorke, lightly.

The duke colored.

"Well, barring the scamp, that was in my thoughts. Do you ever think of the future, Yorke?"

"Never, if I can help it," responded the young fellow, cutting himself a piece of stilton.

The duke smiled, but rather gravely.

"I do, and when I think of it, I wish that I could secure it for you. But you know that I can't, Yorke. Every penny, or nearly every penny, goes to Lord Eustace."

"Don't let it trouble you, Dolph," said Yorke Auchester. "Of course the money must go to keep up the title. Every fellow understands that. Heaven knows I've had enough as it is."

"And so you didn't give Eleanor a birthday present," said the duke, slowly. "That was—to put it delicately, Yorke—thoughtless of you. Will you give me that box, the leather one? Thanks."

He opened the box and took out a small morocco case, and tossed it across the table.

"I had an idea you would forget it, and so——."

"By Jove, that's pretty!" broke in Yorke.

He had opened the case and revealed a gold bracelet, not set with diamonds, but of plain though first-rate workmanship. Just the sort of gift which a rather poor young man could manage.

"I'm glad you like it. I am sure Eleanor will, especially as it comes from you."

Yorke Auchester colored, and he looked for a moment as if he were about to decline the piece of jewelry; but, checking the words that rose to his lips, he put the case in his pocket.

"It's a shame to let her think it came from me, but I'll give it to her, because——." He paused.

"Because you are too good-natured to disoblige me," said the duke.

"She'll think I've been committing burglary."

"In that case she will value the thing all the more highly," retorted the duke. He leaned back and rested his head on his hand.

"Go out and smoke, Yorke," he said presently.

Yorke Auchester was accustomed to his cousin's peremptory words. They were just those of a sick man, and had nothing of discourtesy in them.

"All right," he said. "I'll stroll down to the parade."

The duke smiled.

"I expect you will find nothing but a strip of beach," he said. "There are some cigars in that traveling case."

But Yorke said he had some cigars, and tossing on his hat made his way out into the sunshine.

For the first few minutes, as he went down the village street and along the narrow quay which stood for parade, his face was unusually grave and thoughtful.

We suppose by this time the intelligent reader will have formed some opinion respecting Yorke Auchester. At any rate we are not going to try and persuade the reader that the young fellow was an angel. He was no worse, perhaps a shade better, than most young men of his class. He was idle, but then he had never been taught to work, though in the way of sport he would cheerfully undergo any amount of toil, and endure any amount of hardship. He was thoughtless because he had nothing to think about, except the ever recurring problem—how best to kill time; he was extravagant because, never having earned money, he had no idea of its value. But he would share his last five-pound note with a friend, would sit up beside that friend all night and many nights, if he happened to fall sick, and behind his happy-go-lucky manner hid a heart as tender as a woman's, more tender than most women's, perhaps; and, like the antique hero, feared neither man nor beast. Children and dogs loved him at first sight; but, alas! that was perchance because of his handsome face, his bright smile, and his short, light-hearted laugh, for dogs and children have an unfair partiality for cheerful and good-looking people, and too often unwisely judge by appearances. Anyhow, there he was with all his faults, and so we have got to take him.

He created quite a little sensation as he sauntered along with his hands in his Norfolk jacket, his hat a little on one side, his big L'Arranaga in his mouth; the simple folk of Portmaris had never before seen anything so splendid. But Yorke did not notice them. He was thinking; wondering what his cousin, the duke, would say if he knew how far too well he, Yorke, knew Finetta; wondering whether he hadn't better cut town and marry Eleanor Dallas and her fifty thousand pounds; wondering——.

"Oh, dash it!" he exclaimed at last, as he felt the crisp check in his pocket. "What's the use of bothering, on such a morning, too!" and he threw off the "pale cast of thought," and began to sing under his breath.

Then he stopped suddenly, for he saw a young girl sitting on the shingle with her back to the breakwater.

It was Leslie, sitting as Ralph Duncombe had left her. She held the ring in her hand, her bosom still heaving, her heart troubled, her eyes fixed on vacancy. There was a tear trembling on the long black lashes, and a faint quiver on the parted lips, and Yorke Auchester, as, unseen by her, he stood and looked at her, saw this.

Now, one of this young man's foibles was the desire, when he saw people in distress or trouble, to help them out of it, or, failing to do that, to at any rate try and cheer them up and console them.

"That's the pretty girl from over the way," he mused. "Pretty! It's a lovely face, perfectly lovely. Now, what's the matter with her, I wonder? She can't be up to her neck in debt, and—and the rest of it. Got into a scrape, I expect, and somebody—papa or mamma, I suppose—has been bullying her. I should think whoever they are they must find it difficult to worry such an angel as that. She's been crying, or going to cry. Now what an ass of a world this is! If I were to go down to her, and ask her what was the matter, and try and cheer her up, and tell her there wasn't anything in the universe worth crying for, she'd jump up like a young wild-cat, feel herself insulted, scream for her brother or her father, and there'd be a row. And yet where would be the harm? I know this, that if I were sitting there down on my luck, I should like her to come and console me; but that's different, I suppose. Well, as the man said when his mother-in-law tumbled out of the second floor window, it's no business of mine."

But though he made this philosophical reflection, he still stood and looked at her wistfully, until, afraid that she might turn her head and see him, he went down the beach and sat down on the other side of the breakwater.

Leslie did not hear him, was quite unconscious of his proximity, did not even notice the perfume of the choice Havana. What was troubling her was the memory of Ralph Duncombe's passionate words and melodramatic promise; and the question, what should she do with the ring? She would have died rather than have put it on her finger; she didn't like—though she wanted—to pitch it in the sea. So she still held it in her soft, hot little palm. Happy ring!

So these two sat. Presently that peculiar desire which assails everybody who sits on the beach at the sea-side began to assail Yorke. Why it should be so difficult to refrain from flinging stones into the sea it is impossible to say; the clever people have found out most things, or say they have, but this still beats them.

Yorke, like everybody else, found the desire irresistible. Half unconsciously he took up a stone and shied it at the end pile of the breakwater. He missed it, mechanically took another aim, and hit it, then he absently found a piece of wood—the fragment of some wreck which had gone down outside in the bay, perhaps—and threw that as far as he could into the sullen, angry waves, which rolled and showed their teeth along the sand.

A minute, perhaps two, afterward, he heard a cry of distress behind him, and looking round saw Leslie standing and gazing seaward, with a troubled, anxious look in her gray eyes.

Yorke was astounded. What on earth had happened? Had she caught sight of a vessel going down, a boat upset—what?

She began to run down the beach, her small feet touching the big bowlders with the lightness and confidence of familiarity, and once more she cried out in distress.

Yorke strode after her, and gained her side.

"What's the matter?" he shouted above the dull sea roar.

She turned her face to him with a piteous look of entreaty and alarm.

"Dick! It's Dick!" she said.

"Dick! Who—which—where?" he demanded, looking in the direction of her eyes.

"It's a little dog—there!" she answered, quickly, and pointing. "A little black and tan, don't you see him? Ah, he is so small!"

"I see him!" said Yorke. "What's he doing out there? And can't he swim?"

"Yes, oh, yes, but the tide is going out, and he has got too far, and the current is dreadfully strong. Oh, poor, poor Dick! He went out after a piece of wood or something that some one threw."

Yorke flushed. He felt as guilty and uncomfortable as if he had been detected in an act of killing a human being.

"See, he cannot make any way! Oh, poor little Dick! I am—so—sorry. I am so fond of him, and he is such a nice——." She stopped and turned her head away as if she could not go on, and could look no longer.

"I threw the piece of wood," said Yorke. "I didn't see the dog; he's so small—oh, for goodness sake, don't cry! It's all right."

He got out of his coat with the cool quickness of a man who is used to emergencies in the sporting way, and running across the sand, sprang into the sea, and struck out.

Leslie was too astonished for a moment to realize what he had done, then she raised her voice with a warning cry.

"The current!" she called to him. "The current. Oh, come back, please come back!"

CHAPTER V.

APPRECIATED GENIUS.

Yorke soon found himself out of his depth, and almost as quickly discovered what the young lady meant by shouting, "The current!" But he was a good swimmer—there was scarcely anything Yorke Auchester could not do, except earn his living—and, though he found his boots and clothes very much in the way, he got through the waves at a fair pace, and reached the black and tan.

Saving a fellow creature is hard work enough, but it is almost as bad to rescue a dog, even so small a one as Dick, from a watery grave.

When Yorke had succeeded in getting hold of him with one hand Dick commenced to scratch and claw, no doubt under the impression that the great big man had come to hasten his death rather than prevent it, and Yorke was compelled to swim on his back, and hold the clawing, struggling little terrier pressed hard against his chest.

It was hard work getting back, but he found himself touching the sand at last, and scrambling to his feet waded through what remained of the water, and set Dick upon his four legs at Leslie's feet.

Of course the little imp, after shaking the water off his diminutive carcase, barked furiously at his preserver.

Now the handsomest man—and, for that matter, the prettiest woman also—is not improved in appearance by a bath; that is, before he has dried himself and brushed his hair.

The salt water was running off Yorke's tall figure at all points; his short hair was stuck to his forehead; his mustache drooped, his eyes were blinking, and his clothes adhered to him as if they loved him better than a brother. He didn't look in the least heroic, but extremely comical, and Leslie's first impulse was to laugh.

But the laugh did not—indeed, would not—come, and she picked up the damp Dick and hugged him, and looked over his still snarling countenance at his preserver with a sudden shyness in her eyes and a heightened color in her face.

She looked so supremely lovely as she stood thus that Yorke forgot his sensation of stickiness, and gazed at her with a sudden thrill agitating his heart.

Leslie found her voice at last, but there only came softly, slowly, the commonplace—

"Thank you."

It sounded so terribly commonplace and insufficient that she made an effort and added:

"It was very kind of you to take so much trouble. How wet you must be! You must not stand about."

Yorke smiled, and knocked the hair from his forehead and wrung his shirt sleeves.

"It's all right," he said. "It was my fault. If I hadn't chucked the piece of wood he wouldn't have gone in. He hasn't come to any harm apparently."

"Oh, no, no. He's all right," said Leslie. "He can swim very well when the tide is coming in, but when it is going out it is too strong for him, and—he would have been drowned if you had not gone after him," and her eyes dropped.

"Poor little chap," said Yorke, putting on his coat. "That would never have done, would it, doggie?"

"It is a very dangerous place for bathing," said Leslie. "The current is very strong, and that is why I called out."

"Yes thanks," he said, to spare her the embarrassment of explaining that sudden frightened cry of hers. "I could feel that. But I have to thank Dick for an enjoyable bath, all the same. I suppose he will never forgive me; the person whose life you save never does."

He sat down on the breakwater and began to empty his pockets. There were several papers—bills—reduced to semi-pulp; Yorke did not sorrow over them. His watch had stopped; his cigars and cigar case were irretrievably ruined. He held them up with a laugh, and laid them on top of the breakwater in the sun; then suddenly his happy-go-lucky expression grew rather grave as he took up an envelope and looked at it.

"By George!" he said. "All the rest doesn't matter, but this doesn't belong to me."

Leslie stood and looked down at him anxiously. She was thinking of colds and rheumatism, while the young fellow sat so perfectly contented in his wet clothes.

"Don't you think—had you not better go home and change your things as quickly as possible?" she said, forgetting her shyness in her anxiety.

He looked up from the envelope.

"Why, I shall be dry in ten minutes," he said, carelessly, "and I sha'n't take any harm if I'm not. I never caught cold in my life; besides, salt water never hurts."

Leslie shook her head gravely.

"I don't believe that; it's a fallacy," she said. "Some of the old fishermen here suffer terribly from rheumatism."

"That's because they're old, you see," he said, smiling up at her. "And if you think it's so dangerous hadn't you better put Master Dick down? He is making you awfully wet."

She shook her head, and held Dick all the more tightly.

"I am so glad to get him back," she said, half to herself, "that I don't mind his making me a little damp; but I do wish you would go."

He did not seem to hear her, but after another glance at the letter, said:

"I picked this up just over there," and he nodded in the direction of the cliffs, "and I should like to find its owner; though I expect she won't thank me much when she sees its condition. Have you been here long? Do you know the people here pretty well?"

"We have been here some months," said Leslie, "and—yes, I think I know them all."

"Now, who does she mean by 'we?' Her husband?" Yorke asked himself, and an uncomfortable little pain shot through him. "No!" he assured himself; "she can't be married; too young and—too happy looking! Well, then, perhaps you know a young lady by the name of Lisle—Leslie Lisle," he said.

Leslie smiled.

"That is my name; it is I," she replied.

"By George!" he exclaimed. "Then this is your property!" and he held out the letter.

Leslie took it, and as she looked at the address flushed hotly. It was Ralph Duncombe's missing letter.

Yorke noticed the flush, and he looked aside.

"My father dropped it," she said, with an embarrassment which, slight as it was, did not escape him. "Thank you."

"I'm sorry that I didn't put it in my coat pocket instead of my waistcoat," he said. "But I knew if I did that I should forget it perhaps for weeks. I always forget letters that fellows ask me to post. So I put it in with my watch, that I might come across it when I looked at the time, and so it's got wet; but as it was opened you have read it, so that I hope it doesn't matter so much."

"No, I haven't read it. Papa always opens my letters—he doesn't notice the difference. It does not matter in the least; I know what was in it, thank you," she said, hurriedly.

"I wish some one would always open and read my letters, and answer them, too," said Yorke, devoutly, as he thought of the great pile of bills which awaited him every morning at breakfast. "Are you staying—I mean lodging, visiting here, Miss Lisle?" he asked, for the sake of saying something that would keep her by his side for at least a few minutes longer.

"Yes," said Leslie. "We are staying in 'The Street,' as it is called at Sea View."

Yorke was just about to remark, "I know," but checked himself, and said instead:

"It is a very pretty place, isn't it?"

"Very," assented Leslie; "and quiet. There is no prettier place on the coast than Portmaris."

"So I should think," he said, looking round, then returning to the beautiful face. "I am a stranger, and only arrived an hour or two ago." He looked down, trying to think of something else to say, anything that would keep her; but could think of nothing.

Leslie stood for a moment, silent, too, then she said:

"Will you not go and change your things now? Dick would be very sorry if you were to catch cold on his account."

It was on the tip of Yorke's tongue to ask, "Only Dick?" but once more he checked himself. The retort would have come naturally enough if he had been addressing a London belle; but there was something in the beautiful gray eyes, an indescribable expression of maidenly dignity and reserve, which, sweet as it was, warned him that such conversational small change would not be acceptable to Miss Lisle, so instead he said, with a smile:

"Oh, Dick won't mind. Besides, he knows I am almost as dry as he is by this time."

Leslie shook her head as if in contradiction of his assertion, and with Dick still pressed to her bosom, said:

"Good-morning, and—and thank you very much," she added, with a faint color coming into her face.

Yorke arose, raised his hat, and watched her graceful figure as it lightly stepped up the beach to the quay; then he collected his various soaked articles from the breakwater, and followed at a respectful distance.

"Leslie Lisle," he murmured to himself. "The name's music, and she——."

Apparently he could not hit upon any set of terms which would describe her even to his own mind, and, pressing the water from his trousers, he climbed the beach, still looking at her.

As he did so he saw a tall, thin gentleman coming toward her. He held a canvas in his hands, gingerly, as if it were wet, and was followed by a small boy carrying a portable easel and other artistic impedimenta, and, as Leslie spoke to the artist and took the easel from the boy, Yorke muttered:

"Her father! Now, if I go up to them she'll feel it incumbent upon her to tell him of my 'heroic act,' and he'll be bored to death trying to find something suitable to say; and she'll be embarrassed and upset, and hate the sight of me. She looks like a girl who can't endure a fuss. No, I'll go round the other way—if there is another way, as the cookery books say."

He looked round, and was on the point of diving into a narrow street opposite him when an invalid chair came round the corner, driven by Grey, and the occupant, whose eyes were as sharp as his body was frail and crooked, caught sight of the stalwart figure, and held up a hand beckoningly.

Yorke looked very much as if he meant making a run for it; then, with a muttered, "Oh, confound it!" he stuck his hands in his pockets, tried to look as if nothing had happened, and sauntered with a careless, leisurely air up the quay.

By this time Francis Lisle had stuck up his easel right in the center of the narrow pavement, and arranged his canvas, and Grey was in the act of dragging the invalid chair round it, when Leslie, bending down, said, in a whisper:

"Papa, I must move the easel; they cannot pass."

"Eh?" said Francis Lisle, looking round nervously. "I beg your pardon, I will move; yes, I will move."

"Do not, please," said the duke, his thin voice softening as it always did in the presence of a lady. "There is plenty of room. You can go round, Grey?"

"Yes, your—yes, sir," said Grey.

His master shot a warning glance at him.

"There is not room," said Leslie, in a low voice, but the duke held up his hand.

"Please do not trouble," he said; "I am not going any further. I only want to speak to this gentleman coming along. I beg you will not trouble to move the easel. Artists must not be disturbed, or the inspiration may desert them," he added to Francis Lisle, with a pleasant smile.

"Thank you, thank you," said Lisle, still clutching the easel; but Grey had turned the chair with its front to the sea, and the duke called to Yorke, who had come upon them at this juncture.

"What a pretty place, Yorke!" he said. "Have you had your stroll? Shall we go back?"

Yorke had discreetly kept behind the chair, and out of sight of his cousin's sharp eyes.

"All right," he assented.

"Will you give me a cigar?" said the duke.

Yorke came up to the chair and put his hand in his pocket, and thoughtlessly extended the cigar case.

"Thanks. Good gracious! Why, it is soaking wet! Hallo, Yorke," and the duke screwed his head round. "Why, where have you been? What have you been doing?"

Yorke flushed, and cast an appealing glance at Leslie's downcast face. To be made the center of an astonished and absurdly admiring group, to be made a cheap twopenny-halfpenny hero of, was more than he could stand.

"Oh it's nothing," he growled. "Had an accident—tumbled into the sea."

"An accident!" exclaimed the duke, staring at him. "Tumbled in the sea! How did you manage that, in the name of goodness?"

Yorke got red, and looked very much like an impatient schoolboy caught playing truant or breaking windows.

"What's it matter!" he said. "Fell off breakwater. Go and get the cigars, Grey; I'll look after his——."

The duke cut in quickly before the word "grace."

"Nothing of the sort," he said. "You get home and change your things. Fell off the breakwater!" He stared at him incredulously.

Mr. Lisle, too, gazed at him with blank astonishment, as if he were surprised to find that it was a man and not a little boy in knickerbockers, who might not unnaturally be expected to tumble off the breakwater.

Leslie meanwhile stood with downcast eyes, then suddenly she said, addressing her father and carefully avoiding the other two:

"This gentleman swam in to save Dick, papa; that is why he is wet."

The duke scanned her face keenly, and smiled curiously.

"That sounds more probable than your account, Yorke. It is a strange thing," he turned his head to Lisle, "that a man is more often ashamed of committing a good or generous action than a bad one. How do you account for it?"

Mr. Lisle looked at him helplessly, as if he had been asked a conundrum which no one could be expected to answer.

"Because there is always such a thundering fuss about it," said Yorke, stalking off.

The duke looked after him for a minute or two, apparently lost in thought, then he turned to Lisle again.

"You are an artist, sir?" he said.

Mr. Lisle flushed.

"I am, at least, an humble worshiper at the throne," he replied, in the low, nervous voice with which he always addressed strangers, and he resumed his painting.

The duke signed to Grey to help him to get out of the chair, which was so placed that he could not see the canvas.

Grey came round, and in opening the apron let the duke's stick fall. Leslie hesitated a moment, then stepped forward and picked it up. The duke took it from her with a faint flush on his pale, hollow cheeks.

"Thank you," he said. "I am afraid I could not get on without it. At one time I could not walk even with its aid. Please don't say you are sorry or pity me," he added, with an air of levity that barely concealed his sensitive dread of any expression of sympathy. "Everybody says that, you know."

"I was not going to say so," said Leslie, looking him full in the face, and with a sweet, gentle smile.

He looked at her with his unnaturally keen eyes.

"No," he said, quietly. "I don't think you were. And this is the picture——." He stopped as he looked at the awful monstrosity, then caught Leslie's eyes gazing at him with anxious, pleading deprecation, and went on, "Singular effect. You have taken great pains with your subject, Mr. ——."

"Lisle—my name is Lisle," he said, hurriedly. "Yes, yes, I have not spared pains! I have put my heart into my work."

"That is quite evident," said the duke, with perfect gravity, and still regarding the picture. "And that which a man puts his heart in will reward him some day; does, indeed, reward him even while he works."

"True, true!" assented the dreamer, with a gratified glance at the speaker and at Leslie, who stood with downcast eyes, to which the brows were dangerously near. "It is with that hope, that heart, that we artists continue to labor in face of difficulties which to the careless and irreverent seem insurmountable. You think the picture a—a good one, sir; that it is promising?"

The duke was floored for a moment, then he said:

"I think it evidences the painter's love for his art, and his complete devotion to it, Mr. Lisle."

The poor dreamer's face had fallen during the pause, but it brightened at the diplomatic response when it did come, and Leslie, casting a grateful glance at the pale face of the cripple, murmured in his ear:

"Thank you!"

The duke looked at her with a glow of sympathy in his eyes.

"This is your daughter, I presume, Mr. Lisle?" he said.

Lisle nodded.

"Yes," he said. "My only child. All that is left me in the world—excepting my art. You are not an artist also, sir? Pardon me, but your criticism showed such discrimination and appreciation that I was led to conclude you might be a fellow-student."

The duke hesitated a moment.

"No," he said, quietly. "I am not an artist, though I am fond of a good picture——," poor Lisle gazed at the daub, and nodded with a gratified smile. "I am what is called—I was going to say a gentleman at ease, but I am very seldom at ease. My name is Temple, and I am traveling for the benefit of my health."

Lisle nodded again.

"You will find this an extremely salubrious spot," he said. "My daughter and I are very well here."

The duke glanced at Leslie's tall, graceful figure, and smiled grimly.

"But then she is not a cripple," he said.

"A cripple!" Mr. Lisle looked startled and bewildered. "Oh, no; oh, no."

The duke smiled, and leaning upon his stick, seemed to be watching the painter at his work, but his eyes wandered now and again covertly to the beautiful girl beside him. He noticed that her dress, though admirably fitting, was by no means new or of costly material, that her gloves were well worn and carefully mended in places, that her father, if not shabby, had that peculiar look about his clothes which tells so plainly of narrow means; and when Leslie, becoming conscious of his wandering glance, moved away and stood at a little distance on the edge of the quay, the duke said:

"Have you disposed of your picture, Mr. Lisle?"

Francis Lisle started and flushed.

"N-o," he replied. "That is, not yet."

"I am glad of that," said the duke. "I should like to become its purchaser, if you are disposed to sell it."

Lisle's breath came fast. He had never sold a "picture" in his life, had long and ardently looked forward to doing so, and—and, oh! had the time arrived?

"Certainly, certainly," he said, nervously, and his brush shook. "You like it so much? But perhaps you would like some others of mine better. I—I have several at the cottage. Will you come and look at them?"

"With pleasure," said the duke. "Meanwhile, what shall I give you for this?"

Lisle gazed at the picture with pitiable agitation; he was in mortal terror lest he should scare his customer away by asking too much.

"Really," he faltered, "I—I don't know its value, I have never——," he laughed. "What should you think it was worth?"

The duke ought, if he had answered truthfully, to have replied, "Rather less than nothing," but he feigned to meditate severely, then said:

"If fifty pounds——."

Poor Lisle gasped.

"You—you think—I was going to say twenty."

"We will say fifty," said the duke, as if he were making an excellent bargain. "You have not finished it yet."

"No, no," assented Lisle, eagerly. "I will do so carefully, most carefully. It—it shall be the most finished picture I have ever painted."

"I am sure you will do your best," said the duke. "I will accept your kind invitation to see your other pictures, and now I must be getting back. Good-morning."

"Yes, yes! Good-morning! What did you say your name was?"

"Temple," said the duke.

He glanced at Leslie, raised his hat, was helped into his chair by Grey, who had stood immovable and impassive just out of hearing, and was wheeled away.

Lisle stood all of a quiver for a moment, then beckoned to Leslie.

"What is it, dear," she said, soothingly, as she saw his agitation. Had the crippled stranger told him what the sketch was really like?

"That—that gentleman has bought the picture, Leslie!" he exclaimed, in a tone of nervous excitement and triumph. "You see! I told you the day would come, and it has come. At last! Luck has taken a turn, Leslie! I see a great future before me. I only wanted some one with an appreciative, artistic eye, and this Mr.—Mr. Temple is evidently possessed of one. He saw the value of this at once. I noticed his face change directly he looked at it."

Leslie's face gradually grew red.

"What—what has he given you for it, dear?" she asked.

"Fifty pounds!" exclaimed Lisle, exultingly. "Fifty pounds! It may not be as much as it is worth; but it is a large sum to us, and I am satisfied, more than satisfied! I wonder what he will do with it? Do you think he will let me exhibit it? I will ask him—not just now, but when it is finished. I must finish it at once! Where is my olive green? I have left it at home. Bring it for me, Leslie; it is on the side table."

She went without a word. At the corner of the street she overtook the invalid chair, hesitated a moment, walked on, and then came back.

The duke peered up at her from under his brows.

"I want to speak to you," she said, her breath coming and going quickly.

He motioned to Grey to withdraw out of hearing, and struggling to keep her voice steady, Leslie went on:

"I want to thank you—but, oh, why did you do it? I know—you know that it—it is not worth it—why?"

The duke smiled.

"Do not distress yourself, Miss Lisle," he said, gently. "You refer to my purchase of your father's picture?"

"Yes!" she said, in a troubled voice. "It was kind of you, and it has given him, oh! you cannot tell what pleasure."

"Yes, I think I can. It is not the money."

"No."

"Just so. I understand. And don't you understand that I have bought something more than the sketch? Miss Lisle, I'm not the richest man in England,"—he was just within the truth—"but I can afford the luxury of bestowing pleasure on my fellow creatures now and again. Please don't begrudge or deny me that! I have not too many pleasures," and he glanced downward at his stunted figure. "Of the two, I fancy I am more pleased than your father. Don't say any more, and please don't look so heartbroken, or you will rob me of more than half my satisfaction. Miss Lisle, forgive me, but I think you love your father?"

"Yes; oh, yes!" she breathed.

"Very well, then," he said. "Be careful you do not let him see that you think he has got too good a price for his picture. Let him be happy; happiness comes too seldom for us to turn it aside with a cold welcome."

Leslie looked down at the worn and lined face with eyes that glowed with gratitude.

"I—I can't thank you, Mr. Temple!" she said, in a low voice, that thrilled like some exquisite music. "You have made me happy, and—ah, I can't tell you what I feel!" and she trembled and turned up the street.

The duke looked after her with a wistful expression on his pale face.

"She is an angel!" he murmured.

Then his face changed, grew harder and cynical.

"Yes, an angel at present," he said. "But tell her that I am the Duke of Rothbury, and she will become transformed into a harpy, and want to marry me, like the rest. Grey, where are you! Have you gone to sleep? Are you going to keep me here all day?"

CHAPTER VI.

TAKING A SAIL.

The moon rose early that evening and flooded Portmaris with a light that transformed it, already picturesque enough, into a fairy village beside an enchanted ocean. Leslie sat at the open window of her room, her head resting on her hand, her eyes fixed on the sea, now calmly rippling as if it were rocking itself to sleep in the moonbeams.

Her father had gone to bed, early as it was, worn out with his long day's work and the excitement produced by the sale of his picture, and Leslie was free to recall the events of the day.

Her life hitherto had been so gray and sober, so uneventful, that the incidents which had been crowded into this day had almost bewildered her.

She ought, in common fairness to that individual, have thought first and most of Ralph Duncombe; but it was upon that other young man who had plunged into the waves to reach Dick that her mind was fixed.

Beauty, man's beauty, doesn't count much with women; indeed, it has been remarked by the observant that some of the ugliest men have married the prettiest girls, and it was not Yorke's handsome face which had impressed Leslie. It would be hard to say exactly what it was in him that had done so; perhaps it was the frank smile, the free and musical laugh, that devil-may-care air of his, or the pleasant voice which seemed to float in through the window upon the moonbeams, and find an echo in Leslie's heart. Once or twice she tried to cast him out of her mind. There seemed to her something almost approaching unmaidenliness in dwelling so much upon this stranger; the young man whom she had seen for only a few minutes, and whom she might never see again. Why, she did not even know his name, or at any rate only a part of it. "Yorke," Mr. Temple had called him, and she murmured it absently. "Yorke." It seemed to her to fit him exactly. It had a brave, alert sound in it. She could fancy him ready for any danger, any emergency. He had plunged into the waves after Dick, as if it were quite a matter of course that he should do so, had done it as naturally as if there were no other course open to him. She could see him now, as he came out, with Dick in his arms, his hair plastered on his face, his eyes bright and laughing.

And how anxious he had been to avoid any thanks or fuss! It was wicked of him, of course, to tell a story and account for his besoaked condition by stating that he had fallen off the breakwater—Leslie smiled as she thought of the thinness of the excuse—but she understood why he had fibbed, and—forgave him.

"Don't you like this Mr. Yorke, Dick?" she said to Dick, who lay in a contented coil on her lap. "You ought to do so, for if it had not been for him you would be at the bottom of the sea, little doggie, by this time."

Probably Dick would have liked to have retorted, "And if it hadn't been for him I shouldn't have gone in at all."

Then her thoughts wandered to the crippled hunchback, and her heart thrilled with gratitude as she thought of his kindness; Mrs. Whiting had said that he was a nobleman, but there had evidently been a mistake; very likely the simple-minded landlady had concluded that no one traveling with a man-servant could be less than a man of title.

Leslie thought of the two men—but most of "Yorke"—and all they had said and done for some time before Ralph Duncombe insisted upon his share in her reflections, and as she thought of him she sighed. She pitied him, and was sorry for him, but she did not want to see him again. He had frightened as well as touched her by the passionate avowal which had accompanied the ring.

The ring! She had utterly forgotten it! She put her hand to her pocket, turned it out, but the ring was not there. What had she done with it? It was fast closed in her hand, she remembered, when she heard Dick's piteous yap; and then she had sprung up, and run down the beach. She must have dropped it among the pebbles.

Her heart smote her reproachfully. The least she could do in return for the passionate love Ralph Duncombe had lavished so uselessly upon her was to keep his ring! She rose, troubled and remorseful. The tide had been going out when she dropped it; it was not likely that it would be seen by any one, and it was probably lying where it had fallen. She seemed to see the plain gold circlet lying there in the silent night, neglected and despised.

Her hat and jacket lay on the bed; she snatched them up, put them on hastily, and left the house.

A light burned behind the windows of Marine Villa opposite, and she glanced up at it, trying to picture to herself the two men in the sitting-room; the one so strong and stalwart, the other so weak and crippled.

As she went quickly down the street she was conscious of a new and strange feeling; it was half pleasant, half painful. It seemed to her as if some spirit of change had entered her quiet, peaceful, uneventful life, as if she were on the verge of some novel experience. The feeling disquieted her. She looked up at the stars almost hidden by the haze of the glorious light thrown broadcast by the moon, and there came into her mind some verses—they were from the Persian, though she did not know it—which she had seen under a picture in one of the Academy exhibitions—

"Love is abroad to-night; his wings Beat softly at Heaven's gate!"

Murmuring the musical lines, she passed to the quay, and leaping lightly onto the beach, made her way to the breakwater.

At nine o'clock Portmaris, as a rule, goes to bed.

No one was stirring; the street, the quay, were empty. The tide was far out now, and the sands lay a golden beat between sea and beach, unbroken save where at the very margin of the lapping wavelets a boat lay at anchor.

Not even a greater enthusiast than Francis Lisle could have desired a more delicious picture than she made flitting slowly yet lightly over the beach, her graceful figure casting a long shadow behind her. "Night is youth's season," says the poet, and Leslie's heart was beating to-night with a strange pulsation.

She reached the spot where she had sat with Ralph Duncombe's ring in her hand, and going down on one knee searched carefully. The bright light revealed every pebble, and, convinced at last that it was not there, but that she must have held it until she had run some way down the sands, before she dropped it, she rose from her knees with a sigh, and was going back when she saw a man's form lying full length on the top of the breakwater.

It was a young fisherman apparently, for he was clad in the tight-fitting blue jersey and long sea boots, and wore the red woolen cap common to men and boys in Portmaris. He was stretched out full length with his head resting on his arms, his face upturned, perfectly still and motionless.

It occurred to Leslie that he might have picked up the ring, and, well aware that his class was as honest as the day she went up to him, saying:

"Have you found a ring on the beach, just here?"

The man did not answer nor move, and when she got quite up to him she saw that he was asleep.

She saw, too, something else; that it was not a Portmaris fisherman, but the young man whom Mr. Temple had called "Yorke."

With a sudden rush of crimson to her face she was about to beat a retreat when Yorke started slightly, opened his eyes, and stared up at her.

The next instant he was off the breakwater and on his feet.

"By George!" he exclaimed, with a bated breath. "It is you, Miss Lisle!"

"Yes, it is I," said Leslie as calmly and composedly as she could, and from the effort for composure her voice sounded rather cold.

"I beg your pardon. Of course it is. But——," he hesitated a moment. "Well, the fact is, I was dreaming about you——." He stopped, as if he were afraid he had given offense.

But Leslie smiled.

"It must have been an uncomfortable dream," she said, glancing at the breakwater.

"No," he said. "I was never more comfortable in my life. I'm more used to roughing it than you'd think. I suppose it was the beauty of the night that tempted you as it tempted me?" he went on, with his frank eyes on her face.

Leslie looked down. She could not ask him the question she had put to the supposed fisherman—if he had found her ring, of course, he would give it to her.

"Yes," she said.

"I told Dolph it was too good to sit indoors," he went on. "That's my cousin, the man you saw to-day, you know."

"Mr. Temple?" said Leslie.

"Mr.—yes, Mr. Temple," he assented, after a moment's hesitation. "And I tried to lure him out; but he doesn't care about stirring after dinner, poor old chap——," he broke off with a laugh. "You are looking at my get-up?" he said.

Leslie smiled.

"I suppose you took me for one of the marine monsters who abound here. Fact is, I found my things wetter than I supposed——."

"I knew you would!" said Leslie, with an air of gentle triumph.

"Yes, and as I hadn't a change with me I borrowed a suit from the landlady's boy; a 'boy' about six feet high. I fancy I rather upset my cousin's man sitting down to dinner in 'em; but they're astonishingly comfortable. I'm half inclined to take to them as a regular thing. After all, one might be worse than a fisherman, Miss Lisle."

"Very much," said Leslie, with a smile.

"Oh, you're surely not going!" he said, as she half turned toward the quay. "It's far better out here than indoors; and it's early, too. Won't you walk across the sand to the edge of the sea? It's quite dry."

He moved in that direction as he spoke, and Leslie, with a twinge of conscience, moved also.

"It's a pity all life can't be a moonlight night," he said, after a pause, and with a faint sigh. "By George, it would be grand on the water to-night. There's just enough wind to keep a boat going—and there's a boat!" he exclaimed, pointing to the boat lying at anchor at the edge of the water as if he had made a discovery which was to render this weary world happy for evermore. "What do you say to going for a little sail, Miss Lisle?"

He put the question very much as one truant from school might put it to another, only a little more timorously.

"It would be splendid, a thing to be remembered. Oh, don't say no! I've set my heart upon it——."

"Why should you not go?" said Leslie, trying to smile, and to keep from her eyes the wistful longing which his audacious suggestion had aroused.

"By myself!" he said, reproachfully, and with a kind of high-minded wonder. "I wouldn't be so selfish. Come, Miss Lisle—I—I mean we—may never have another chance like this. You don't get such nights as this in England often. And you need not be nervous. I can manage a boat in half a gale. But never mind if you think you wouldn't be safe."

This may have been a stroke of artfulness or pure ingenuousness; it settled the matter.

"I have never been afraid in my life—that I remember," said Leslie, conscientiously.

"Then that settles it!" he said, in that tone of free joyousness which appeals to a woman more than any tone a man can use. "Here we are—and by Jove, here's a real sea-monster asleep in the boat. Hallo, there!" he called out to an old man who lay curled up in the bottom of the boat.

Leslie laughed softly.

"It is of no use calling to him," she said. "He is stone deaf. It is old Will, and he is waiting for the turn of the tide."

"Like a good many more of us," said Yorke, cheerfully, and he was about to shake the man, but Leslie put her hand on his arm and stayed him.

"I—I think I had better wake him," she said. "He is old, and not very good-tempered, and——."

"I see. All right," said Yorke. "I'll keep here in the background. If he refuses to go tell him we'll take his boat and do without him."

Leslie bent over the gunwale, and touched the old man gently. He stirred after a moment or two, and got up on his elbow, frowning at her.

Leslie indicated by expressive pantomime that they wanted to go for a sail, and, after glancing at the sky and at Yorke, the old fellow nodded surlily, and got out of the boat.

Yorke helped him to push the boat into the water.

"And now how are you going to get in?" he said to Leslie, but before she could answer the question old Will took her in his arms and carried her bodily into the boat.

Leslie smiled.

"He is a very self-willed old man, and no one in Portmaris interferes with or contradicts him, perhaps because he is deaf."

"I see," said Yorke. "I never realized until to-night the great advantages of that affliction."

He went forward as he spoke to assist with the sail, but the old man surlily waved him back into the stern.

"All right, William, I'll steer then," he said; but he had no sooner got hold of the tiller than Will angrily signed to him to release it, and pointed to Leslie.

"I think he wants me to steer," she said, with a faint blush. "I am often out sailing with him."

"He evidently regards me as a land lubber, whatever that is," said Yorke. "But, right! the password for to-night is, 'Don't cross old William!'"

He dropped down at her feet and leaned his head upon his hand, and sighed with supreme, unbounded content, and there was silence for a few minutes as the boat glided out to sea; then he said:

"Do you think old William would fly into a paroxysm of rage if I offered him a pipe of tobacco, Miss Lisle?"

"You might try," said Leslie, and the tone of her voice was like an echo of his. The two truants were enjoying themselves, and had no thought of the schoolmaster—just then.

Yorke took out his pouch, and flung it with dextrous aim into the old man's lap. He took it up, glowered at the donor for a moment, then nodded surlily, and, filling his pipe, pitched the pouch back.

"We still live!" said Yorke, and he was about to fill his own pipe, but remembered himself and stopped.

"Please smoke if you wish to," said Leslie, "I do not mind. We must not go far," she added.

"Not farther than Quebec or, say, Boulogne," said Yorke. "All right, Miss Lisle, we'll turn directly you say so. How delightful this is! I may have been happier in the course of an ill-spent life, but I don't remember it. Are you sorry you came? Please answer truthfully, and don't mind my feelings."

But Leslie did not answer. The strange feeling which had haunted her as she left the house was growing more distinct and defiant, stronger and more aggressive. Was it really she, Leslie Lisle, who was sailing over the moonlit sea with this careless and light-hearted young man, or should she wake presently in her tiny room in Sea View and find it all a dream?

Happy? Was this novel sensation, as of some vague undefined joy, happiness or what?

She was wise to leave the question unanswered!

Yorke smoked in silence for a minute or two, then he turned on his elbow so that he could look up at her.

"Miss Lisle," he said, "were you looking for something when you came down the beach just now? I ask because I thought you looked rather troubled——."

"But you were asleep!" said Leslie.

He colored, and his eyes dropped.

"I've given myself away," he said, penitently. "No, Miss Lisle, I wasn't asleep. But I thought it better to pretend, as the children say, lest you should take fright and run away."

Leslie looked away from him.

"You are angry? Well, it serves me right. But don't think of it. Try and forgive me if you can, for I was half asleep, and I was dreaming of you—there, I've offended you again! But don't you know how you can dream though you are wide awake? I was wondering whether I should see you again—there was no harm in that, was there?—wondering whether I should have seen you or spoken to you at all if it hadn't been for Dick——. By the way, how is Dick?"

"He is all right," she said, the tension caused by his former words suddenly relieved, "but I do not think he will ever forgive you for saving his life."

"I'm afraid not," he said. "But you have not answered my question yet."

"Which one?" asked Leslie, with a smile.

"Whether you had lost anything," he said.

"Yes, I had," she replied, in a low voice.

He put his hand in his waistcoat-pocket, and took out the ring and held it up.

"Is this it?" he said, and his voice was suddenly grave and serious.

Leslie took it from his fingers.

"Thank you. Yes," she said. "Where did you find it?"

He was silent a moment as if lost in thought, then he said, as if with an effort:

"On the beach; just where you had been sitting this afternoon. You dropped it, I suppose?"

"Yes," said Leslie.

There was a pause.

"You are glad to get it back?"

"Yes," she said, looking straight in front of her.

"An old favorite, Miss Lisle?" his eyes fixed on the beautiful face over which the moonbeams fell lovingly.

"N-o," she said, the faint color creeping into her cheeks.

"No! But you were glad to get it back. You didn't seem so very glad, you know."

"No, I was not so very glad," she said, almost inaudibly.

He seemed relieved, and yet rather doubtful still.

"It's singular," he said. "But this is the second thing of yours I have found to-day."

"Yes."

"And they say that if you find two things in one day you are sure to lose something yourself," he murmured, a serious, intent look coming into his dark eyes.

"But the day has gone, and you have not lost anything!" said Leslie, with a smile.

His eyes dropped from his intense regard of her face.

"I am not so sure!" he said.

Did she hear him?

CHAPTER VII.

THE DUKE'S SNEERS.

The boat sails on. Leslie has no mother to watch over her and warn her of sinning against the great goddess Propriety; and as there is no harm to him who thinks none, Leslie is not troubled by conscience because she is out sailing on this Heaven sent evening with a young man and only deaf William for chaperon.

Perhaps this is because of the peculiar nature of the young man. There is no shyness about Yorke, and his manner is just of that kind to inspire confidence; he treats Leslie with a mixture of frankness and respect which could not be greater if he had known her for years instead of a few hours only; and it is but fair to add that his manner toward a duchess would be just the same.

He is happy, is enjoying himself to the utmost, and he assuredly does not trouble his head about the proprieties. But all the same, he is silent after that last remark of his, which Leslie may or may not have heard.

He is lying across the boat, so that without much effort he can see her face. What a lovely face it is, he thinks, and how thoughtful. Is she thinking of that letter he gave her, or of the ring? And who gave her that? It ought not to matter to him, and yet the question worries him not a little. He dismisses it with a half audible "Heigh-ho!"

"I suppose these are what are called dancing waves?" he says at last. "Are you fond of dancing, Miss Leslie? But of course you are."

Leslie lets her dark gray eyes fall on his handsome upturned face as if she had been recalled to earth.

"Oh, yes," she says. "All women are, are they not? But I do not get much dancing. It is years since I was at a party. My father is not strong, and dislikes going out, and—well, there is no one else to go with me; besides, I should not leave him."

He nods thoughtfully, and some idea of what her life must be dawns upon him.

"You must lead a very quiet life," he says.

Leslie smiles.

"Yes, very, very quiet," she assents.

"What do you do to amuse yourself?" he asks.

Leslie thinks a moment.

"Oh," she says, cheerfully, and without a shadow of discontent in her voice or in her face, "I take walks, when my father does not want me, but he usually likes me to stay with him while he is painting; and sometimes William takes me for a sail, and there is the piano. My father likes me to play while he is at work; but when he does not I read."

"And is that all?" he says, raising himself on his elbow that he may better see her face.

"All?" she repeats. "What else is there? It seems a great deal."

He does not answer, but he thinks of the women he knows, the idle women who are always restless and discontented unless they are deep in some excitement, riding, driving, ball and theater going; and as he thinks of the difference between their lives and this girl's, there rises in his breast a longing to brighten her life if only for a few hours a day.

"Well," he says, "it sounds rather slow. And—and have you led this kind of life long?"

"As long as I can remember," replies Leslie. "Papa and I have been alone together ever since I was a little mite, and—yes, it has always been the same."

"And you never go to a theater, a dance, a concert?"

Leslie laughs softly.

"Never is a big word," she says. "Oh, yes, when we are in London my father sometimes but very seldom takes me to a theater, and now and again there are dances at the boarding houses we stay at."

Yorke almost groans. How delightful it would be to take this beautiful young creature for a whole round of theaters, to see her dressed in full war paint, to watch those dark gray eyes light up with pleasant and girlish joy.

"And which are you most fond of?" he asks. "Walking, sailing, playing, reading?"

She thinks again.

"I don't know. I'm very fond of the country, and enjoy my walks, but then I am also fond of sailing, and music, and reading. Do you know the country round here?"

He shakes his head.

"No, I only came to-day, you know."

"Ah, yes," she says, and she says it with a faint feeling of surprise; it seems to her as if he had been here at Portmaris for a week at least. "There is a very lovely place called St. Martin; it is about twelve miles out. There is an old castle, or the remains of one, and from the top of it you can see—well, nearly all the world, it seems."

"That must be worth going to," he says, and an idea strikes him. "My cousin—I mean Mr. Temple, you know—would like to see that."

"Yes," says Leslie. "But he could not walk so far."

"No. Do you mean to say you can?"

Leslie laughs softly.

"Oh, yes; I have walked there and back several times."

"You must be very strong!"

"Yes, I think I am. I am always well; yes, I suppose I am strong."

He still sighs at her; the graceful figure is so slight that he finds it difficult to realize her doing twenty-four miles. The women he knows would have a fit at the mere thought of such an undertaking.

"I think to-morrow is going to be a fine day," he says, looking up at the cloudless sky with a business-like air.

"Yes," says Leslie, as if she were first cousin to the clerk of the weather. "It's going to be fine to-morrow."

"Well, then," he says, "I'll try and get something and drive my cousin over to—what's the name of the place with the castle?"

"St. Martin."

"Yes. The worst of it is that he—I mean my cousin, and not St. Martin—so soon gets bored if he hasn't some one more amusing than I am to keep him company; you see, he's an invalid, and crotchety."

"Poor fellow!" murmurs Leslie. "And yet he is so kind and generous," she adds as she thinks of the fifty pounds he has given for the "picture."

"Yes, indeed!" he assents. "The best fellow that ever drew breath, for all his whims and fancies; and he can't help having those, you know. He would like to go to St. Martin to-morrow, especially if you—do you think we could persuade you and Mr. Lisle to accompany us?"

Leslie looks at him almost startled, then the color comes into her face, and her eyes brighten.

"It would be awfully good-natured of you if you would," he goes on, quickly, and as if he knew he was demanding a great sacrifice of her "awfully good nature."

"My father——." Leslie shakes her head. "I am afraid he would not go; he will want to paint if the day is fine."

"He can paint at St. Martin," he breaks in, eagerly. "There must be no end of sketches, studies, whatever you call it, there, you know. I wish you'd ask him! It would do my cousin so much good, and—and," the arch hypocrite falters as he meets the innocent, eagerly wistful eyes, "though I dare say you won't care for the dusty drive, and have seen quite enough of the place, still, you'd be doing a good action, don't you know, and—all that. It will cheer my cousin up sooner than anything."

"Very well," says Leslie. "I will ask my father. But it will not matter if we do not go. You must persuade Mr. Temple."

"Mr. ——. Oh, my cousin, yes," he says, with sudden embarrassment. "Yes, of course. Thank you! It is awfully good of you."

Leslie looks at him, her color deepening; then she laughs softly.

"Why, I want to go, too!" she says. "There is no goodness in it."

Yorke Auchester's glance falls before her guileless eyes.

"Then that settles it," he says, confidently. "What point is that out there, Miss Lisle?"

Leslie starts.

"That is Ragged Points!" she replies. "I had no idea we had come so far; please tell him I am going to put the boat round; it must be very late!"

"No, it isn't," he says. "I can tell by the moon. Can't we go a little farther?"

But she ports the helm, and old William, without a word, swings the sail over, and the boat's nose is pointing to land.

Yorke looks at Portmaris, asleep in the moonlight, regretfully.

"That's the worst of being thoroughly happy and comfortable," he says. "It always comes to an end and you have to come back. What a pace we are going, too!" he adds, almost in a tone of complaint.

"The wind is with us," says Leslie.

"I should like to stay at Portmaris and buy a boat," he says, after a moment or two. "It would be very jolly."

Leslie smiles.

"It is not always fine even at Portmaris," she says. "Sometimes the waves are mountain high, and the sea runs up over the quay as if it meant to wash the village away."

"Well, I shouldn't mind that," he remarks. "I wonder why one lives in London? One is always grunting at and slanging it, and yet one hangs on there." He sighs inaudibly as he thinks of what it must be to-night, with its feverish crowd, its glaring lights, its yelling cabmen and struggling horses; thinks of the folly, and, alas! the wickedness, and glances at the lovely, peaceful face above him with a great yearning—and regret.

"I like London," says Leslie. "But then I go there so seldom, that it is a holiday place to me."

"I know," he responds. "Yes, I can understand that. And I like Portmaris because it is a holiday place to me, I suppose."

Leslie smiles.

"I hope you will not catch cold and be all the worse for this holiday," she says.

He laughs.

"There is no fear of that. I never felt better in my life."

"You must sit firm now," she warns him. "I am going to drive the boat on to the sand."

"Here already!" he remarks, as the keel of the boat touches bottom, and the sails run down with a musical thud; and he steps over the side, and so suddenly that the boat lurches over after him.

He puts out his strong arm to stay her from falling, while old William curses the "land lubber" in accents low but deep.

"I'm about as awkward in a small boat as a hippopotamus," he says, remorsefully. "Will you let me help you ashore?"

He means "carry you," and he holds out his arms, but Leslie shrinks back ever so slightly, and old William comes to the side of the boat and picks her up as a matter of course.

Yorke slips a sovereign into the old man's horny palm, and William, who is not dumb as well as deaf, would probably open his lips now, but for astonishment and amazed delight. He does, however, grin.

As the two walk up the beach Yorke looks behind him at the moonlit sea and the boats, and shakes his head.

"It was a shame to come in," he says, "but never mind, perhaps——." He stops, not daring to finish the sentence, but he feels as if he would cheerfully give half the amount of the check in his pocket for such another sail in the same company.

The quay is empty, the street silent, but as they go up it they see the crippled "Mr. Temple" leaning against the door of Marine Villa.

His keen eyes rest upon them both good-naturedly.

"Where have you been?" he asks.

"Where you ought to have been, Dolph," replies Yorke. "On the water. You can't imagine what it is like."

"Oh, yes, I can," says the duke. "But I am—too old for moonlight sails. I am a day-bird. Have you enjoyed it, Miss Lisle?"

Leslie smiles for answer.

"Look here, Dolph," says Yorke, with affected carelessness. "What do you say to driving out to a place called St. Martin to-morrow? I'm going to try and persuade Miss Lisle and her father to show us the way."

The duke looks at her.

"I shall be very glad," he says. "Will you come, Miss Lisle?"

"If my father——," begins Leslie, and the duke interrupts her.

"We ought to send a formal invitation," he says, with a smile. "Will you give Mr. Lisle our compliments, Miss Lisle, and tell him how much the Duke of Rothbury and Mr. Temple will be indebted to him if you and he will accompany them on a drive to-morrow."

Leslie looks from one to the other for a moment as if she did not understand. The Duke of Rothbury! Can he be jesting?

The duke struggles with a smile as he sees her astonishment, then he says, casually:

"I hope you found the duke a good sailor, Miss Lisle."

Leslie glances at Yorke, who stands staring at his fishermen's boots, with a moody and not well pleased expression on his face.

"I nearly upset the boat," he says, as if to account for his change of countenance.

"It did not matter," she says. "We were on the sands. Yes, I will tell my father, and—thank you very much."

If the duke expected her to be overwhelmed by the announcement of the title he is doomed to disappointment. The first sensation of surprise over, Leslie is as calm and self-possessed as before.

"Good-night," she says, in her sweet, low voice, and a moment afterward the door of Sea View is closed upon her.

The duke looked at his cousin's downcast face with a whimsical smile.

"How well she took it!" he said. "A London girl of the most accomplished type could not have concealed her flutters with greater ease."

"She had nothing to conceal," said Yorke, with averted eyes. "It didn't matter to her that—that you called me a duke. Why should it?"

"Why should it! My dear Yorke, you have grown simple during your moonlight sail. Oh, she was confused and flustered, believe me; but all her sex are actresses from the cradle. Give me your hand, and let us go in."

Yorke helped him up the stairs and into his chair, then stood gazing moodily out of the window.

"Your outing seems to have made you melancholy, Yorke," said the duke. "And yet you looked as if you enjoyed it just now."

"So I did, but——Dolph, I wish to Heaven you hadn't told her that infer—that nonsense!"

The duke leaned back, and looked at him with real or simulated surprise.

"Why not?" he asked. "Have you forgotten our bargain, agreement?"

"Yes, I had forgotten it," replied Yorke, grimly.

"So soon! Why are you so put out? What does it matter? You are going to-morrow——."

"You forget the drive—the appointment; but the best thing I can do is to go, as you say," said Yorke. "You can make some excuse——."

"Nonsense! If you care for this outing, stay and go. It will only mean one more day, and London will not fall to pieces because of your absence for twenty-four hours."

"It is not that——."

"Well, what is it, then? Are you thinking of this girl?"

Yorke flushed, and turned to the window again.

"What does it matter?" went on the duke. "She is a nice girl, but, my dear Yorke," and his voice grew grave, "even if we had not made this little arrangement about the title, she would be nothing more to you than just a pleasant young lady whom you chanced to meet at an outlandish place on the West Coast."

Yorke thrust his hands deep into his pockets—or rather young Whiting's—and the flush on his face grew deeper!

"I know that!" he said, as grimly as before.

"Very well, then! I repeat—what does it matter? If you are annoyed because, in accordance with an arrangement, I introduced you as the duke, why on earth did you consent? It is too late now! Even if I hadn't told her, Grey, or the woman of the house here, or some one else would have done so to-morrow morning——."

"It is too late, I suppose!" broke in Yorke, moodily.

"Quite too late," retorts the duke, decisively. "To tell the truth now would create a sensation and fuss which would be unendurable." He put his hand to his head as he spoke, and moaned faintly as if in pain. "Give me that small vial off the table, will you, please?" he said.

One of his periodical attacks of nervous neuralgia was coming on; and at such times he was wont to grow irritable.

Yorke poured out some of the medicine, and gave it to him.

"Thanks. Yes, it would make a hideous fuss. We should have it in the papers headed, 'A Ducal Hoax,' or something of that kind. But I don't want to force you into anything against your will. I can leave here the first thing to-morrow; I certainly should go if you departed from our arrangement. I came down here for rest and quiet, and I should get none if it were known who I am. Yes, we'd better go to-morrow."

"No, no," said Yorke. "After all, as you say, it does not matter. Besides—besides, I shouldn't care to deprive her of the little bit of pleasure I'd planned for her; I fancy she doesn't get too much of it."

"I dare say not. Very well, then, you'll stay till after to-morrow? For goodness sake try and look a little less funereal. You had no objection to assuming the role till you met this girl. What difference does she make? You think she will make love to you, eh? I should have thought from what I know of you, Yorke, that you would have no very great objection to that."

Yorke swung round almost angrily.

"Look here, Dolph," he said, grimly. "You are altogether mistaken about her. I tell you that she does not care, and will not care, whether I or you are the duke; she is not that sort of girl at all."

The duke was in a paroxysm of pain, intense enough to turn a saint cynical; he sneered:

"I know them all, root and branch," he said, his thin voice rendered shrill and cutting by his agony. "I tell you that she will make love to you; that, thinking you are the duke, she will try and marry you as she would try and marry me if she knew the truth."

"No!" said Yorke, shortly, almost fiercely. "I say that she would not care."

"You seem to have learned her nature very quickly," retorted the duke, with another sneer.

Yorke colored and turned away.

"I tell you that she will turn out like the rest. You deny it, doubt it; very well. Play the part you have assumed, and if I am wrong I will admit I have done her an injustice."

"You do her a cruel injustice!" said Yorke, in a low voice.

"Very well, then!" shouted the duke. "Try her, try her. And then own that I was right. Ah, you're afraid. You know, in your heart, that she would not stand the test! Your innocent, high-minded girl would prove like the rest! Come, you are beaten! Better spare her the disappointment of setting her cap at a false duke; better go to-morrow, my dear Yorke!"

Yorke swung round, his face pale, an angry light in his eyes.

"No, I'll stay!" he said.

CHAPTER VIII.

YORKE AUCHESTER AS A STRATEGIST.

When Leslie wakes next morning she wonders what it is that sends a thrill of happiness through her; then, as with dazed eyes she looks through the sunny window, she remembers the proposed expedition to St. Martin; but she remembers also that the companion of last evening is a duke, and her spirits droop suddenly.

It is difficult to persuade her father to join in the mildest of excursions; it will be very difficult, indeed, to induce him to accept an invitation to drive with a duke. Some women would have experienced an added joy at the thought that they had been honored with civility from a person of such high rank; but the fact rather lessens Leslie's pleasure.

Yorke did her justice; she is not elated nor awed by the ducal title.

When she comes down to breakfast she finds her father posing in front of his picture, his thin hands clasped behind his back, his head bent; and as she kisses him he sighs rather querulously.

"Is anything the matter, dear?" she asks.

"I've got a headache," he replies. "I—I do not feel up to work, and I am so anxious to get on. How do you think it looks?"

Leslie draws him away from the easel to the table, and forces him gently into his chair.

"We will not look at it this morning, at any rate until we have had breakfast, dear," she says. "It is wonderful how much better and brighter this world and everything in it looks after a cup of coffee. But, papa, you must not work to-day, you must take a rest——."

"A rest!" he begins, impatiently.

"Yes; you know how often you say that working against the grain is time and energy wasted. And there is another reason, dear," she goes on, brightly. "We have an invitation for to-day!"

"A what?" he asks, querulously.

"An invitation, dear. We have been asked to drive to St. Martin. Last night," a faint blush rises to her face, "I ran down to the beach to—to find something I had lost, and I saw Mr. Temple's friend, and we went for a sail with old William; and afterward I saw Mr. Temple outside Marine Villa, and they have been kind enough to ask us to go with them to St. Martin. It was the duke who asked us," she adds, candidly; "but Mr. Temple was just as kind and pressing. I hope you will go, dear."

He puts the thin, straggling hair from his forehead with a nervous gesture.

"What are you talking about, Leslie? what duke?"

Leslie laughs softly.

"It appears that the young man who went in for Dick yesterday, Mr. Temple's friend, is a duke, the Duke of Rothbury," she replies.

Like herself, he is neither elated nor awed, but he lisps a distinct refusal of the invitation.

"The Duke of Rothbury?" he says. "I—I think I've heard the title somewhere. Why do they ask us to go with them? I don't want to go; and I suppose you don't care for it. They are strangers, perfect strangers to us."

"He has already proved himself a very kind friend," says Leslie, gently.

He flushes.

"You mean in buying the picture? Yes, yes. But you know how I dislike strangers, and—and—excursions of this kind. And if you don't want to go very much I'd rather not. Besides, I don't particularly care about making the acquaintance of a duke; I am an artist, a professional man, and I do not believe in associating with persons so far above me in rank. No, we had better decline. I dare say my head will be all right presently, and I shall be able to work, and you can come with me and mix the colors, and so on."

"Very well, dear," she says, struggling to suppress a sigh. "You shall do just as you like. I should have liked to have gone, and the drive would have done you good."

"I am quite well, and I hate long drives," he responds, emphatically, "especially in the company of dukes. What is he doing down here?" he asks, testily. "Did you say you went for a sail with him last evening?"

"Yes," says Leslie, with a sigh that will not be suppressed as she thinks of the moonlit sea, and the pleasant companion who unfortunately has turned out to be a duke. "Yes, and he was very kind and nice, and not a bit like so grand a personage," she adds, with a smile. "He looked exactly like a—fisherman last night, and talked like a young man fresh from school or college. He is not my idea of a duke at all; I fancy I must have thought that dukes talked in blank verse, and habitually wore their coronets and robes."

He waves the subject aside with nervous impatience.

"I don't know anything about them, and I don't want to," he says, getting up and fidgeting round the picture. "I've got this sky too deep, I think, and——." He continues in an inaudible mutter.

Leslie knows that it is useless to say any more, and is silent, and when her breakfast things are cleared away she gets out her plain little desk to write a refusal.

But at the outset she finds herself in a difficulty. "Mr. and Miss Lisle regret," etc., sounds too formal after that eminently informal sail last night, and yet she does not know how to begin her note in the first person. Should she address him as "Dear duke," or "Your grace," or "My lord," or how?

"Did you ever write to a duke, papa?" she asks at last, playing a tattoo with the pen-holder upon her white, even teeth.

"Never, thank Heaven," he says, absently.

"Then you cannot help me?" she says, with a sigh, and ultimately she puts the note in the formal method.

"Miss Lisle presents her compliments to the Duke of Rothbury, and regrets that she and Mr. Lisle are unable to accept his kind invitation for to-day."

"It looks dreadfully stilted and ungrateful," she says to herself; "but it will certainly remove any risk of further acquaintance, and papa will not be worried into knowing such a great personage."

She sends the note over by Mrs. Merrick's small servant, and in five minutes that diminutive maid comes back open-eyed and mouthed with awe and importance.

"If you please, miss, I gave the note to the gentleman what wheels the other gentleman's chair, and he says the duke has gone to Northcliffe, but he'll give him the note when he comes back."

Leslie laughs rather ruefully.

"We need not have worried about the drive to St. Martin, papa," she says. "The duke has forgotten all about it."

But the artist is painting away vigorously, and apparently does not hear her, and with a feeling of disappointment which it is useless to struggle against, she gets out some work and seats herself at the open window.

She has proved more reliable than the usual run of weather prophets, and the day is all she prognosticated. The street is bathed in sunlight, the sea is sparkling as if it had been sprinkled with amethysts; there is a soft breeze laden with the perfume of the early summer flowers in the cottage gardens; a thrush perched on a tree close by is singing with all its might and main. It would have been very pleasant, that proposed drive to St. Martin.

The morning passes slowly onward; the artist, too absorbed by his work to notice the sunlight, or the sea, or the birds, is still painting when, with the striking of the midday hour there mingles the click clack of horses' hoofs on the stony street, and Leslie looking up with a start—for she has been thinking of all she has lost—sees a wagonette and a pair of stylish bays draw up to the door.

On the box is Yorke, no longer in the fisherman's jersey, but clad in Harris tweed, his handsome face bright and cheerful, his whole "get up" and manner suggesting pleasure and a holiday.

After quieting the spirited horses with words and a touch of the whip, he looks down from his high perch, and seeing the startled eyes looking up at him, raises his hat and smiles.

"Are you ready?" he inquires, just as he inquired last night.

Leslie shakes her head, and tries to smile, but the effort is a failure, and putting down her work, she comes to the open door.

"Oh, I am so sorry," she says. "Did you not get my note?"

"What note?" he asks. "Stand still, will you! No, I haven't seen any note. What was it about?"

"We cannot come," she says, with a look at the horses which is more wistful even than she knows.

His face clouds instantly.

"Not come! Oh, I say! Has anything happened? Why not? It's the loveliest day——."

"Yes, isn't it?" she assents, shading her eyes and looking round. "But my father is not well. He has a headache, and——."

"Why, that's all the more reason he should go!" he responds, promptly. "The drive would set him straight!" he urges, remonstratively. "Look here, I'll go and speak to him."

"And while you do the horses will run away straight into the sea," she says, with a smile.

"No, they won't. If you don't mind just standing by this one, the near one. If he moves growl at him like this, 'Stand still!' He'll stop directly."

"Well, I'll try," she says, laughing in spite of herself; and he goes straight into the room.

Lisle looks up at him with impatient surprise and half-dazed; it is as if the young fellow had brought the brilliant sunlight in with him.

"Mr. Lisle, you don't mean to say you aren't coming?" says Yorke.

"Coming? Where?" He has forgotten all about the invitation.

"Why, to St. somewhere or other," says Yorke. "It never entered my head that you'd refuse. Why should you? If you don't care about it yourself, you ought to go for Miss Leslie's sake. She wants a change, an outing; any one can see that. Perhaps you haven't noticed how pale she looks this morning."

Oh, Yorke!

"Leslie is all right," says Lisle, irritably; "she is always strong and well. I'm sorry we cannot accompany you, but I beg your pardon, you are standing in my light. Thank you."

Yorke looks from the pale, livid face of the dreamer to the impossible picture on the easel, and bites his lips. He is sorely tempted to catch up the artist, easel and all, and bundle them into the carriage. Then a far better and more feasible idea strikes him.

"I'm sorry you can't go, Mr. Lisle," he says as indifferently as he can, "because I thought of asking you to make a rough sketch of the castle for me. Want it for my own room, you know. I'm awfully mad on water colors."

Mr. Lisle looks up with awakened interest.

"There is a good sketch to be got out of the west end, the turret," he murmurs, absently.

"That's just what I wanted," Yorke strikes in promptly. "That's the bit I was going to ask you to paint. Come along, sir; allow me," and he catches up the portable easel and paint box and carries them out before Lisle can realize what is being done.

"All right!" Yorke cries to the astonished Leslie: "he is coming. Run in and put your things on, and don't give him time to think."

"But," falters Leslie, a smile beginning to break on the lovely face.

"But nothing!" he cuts in. "Please be quick, or he'll have time to change his mind."

Leslie runs in, laughing, and Yorke, stowing the easel under the seat, shouts out for Grey.

"Tell the—Mr. Temple we're ready," he says quickly. "Got that hamper?"

"Yes, your grace," says Grey.

"Confound——all right then. Get your master down as soon as possible; and Grey, bring me out a glass of ale. Heigh-ho, that was a narrow squeak," and he draws a long breath. "What, let him deprive her of her outing? Not if I had to take the house as well!"

Presently the duke and Grey come out, and Grey helps him into his seat. They have not long to wait for the other two, and Yorke looks approvingly at the slim, graceful figure, which plainly dressed though it may be, is unmistakably that of a lady.

Mr. Lisle, scarcely knowing what they are doing with him, is bundled in; and Yorke, as a matter of course, stands by to assist Leslie to the seat on the box beside him.

"But would not some one else like to sit there?" she says, hesitatingly.

"I am sure Mr. Lisle would be more comfortable inside," he says. "And we mustn't keep the horses waiting longer than we can help, please," he says, and he puts his hand under her elbow and hoists her up carefully.

Then he springs into his place, touches the horses with the whip, and away they go.

Leslie draws a long breath. It is not until they have got to the open country that she can believe that they have actually started.

"It was a near thing," he says, as if he were reading her thoughts.

"Yes," and she smiles; "I don't know how you managed it."

He laughs light-heartedly.

"It was done by force of arms. I meant you—I mean Mr. Lisle—to go, and when I mean a thing I'm hard to obstruct."

"This is rather a grand turn-out, Yorke," remarks the duke. "May one ask where and how you got it? It doesn't look like a hired affair."

"It isn't," he replies. "When I got to Northcliffe I ran against little Vinson, who appears to be staying there. The wagon was standing outside and he asked me if I would like to go for a drive. I said I should if he'd let me have the horses and not ask to go with me. He stared for a minute, then he took off his gloves, and—here you are, you know."

"Wasn't that rather cool?" asks the duke.

Yorke laughs.

"Oh, he's a good-natured little chap, and didn't seem to mind. Said he'd go for a sail instead."

"He must be very good-natured," said Leslie, smiling in spite of herself.

"So he ought to be. He's as rich as Crœsus, and hasn't a care in the world. His father, Lord Eastford, you know, bought up a lot of nursery gardens just outside what was then London, and they've turned out a gold mine. The part got fashionable, you know."

The mention of a lord reminds Leslie—she had forgotten it until now—that the young man beside her is a duke, and she wonders whether she ought to have addressed him as "your grace."

"Now, Miss Lisle," he says, "you've got to play the part of guide, you know. Is it straight on, or how?"

"Straight on, your grace," she says, thinking she will try how it sounds. It doesn't sound very well in her own ears, nor, apparently, in his, for he stops in the act of flicking a fly off the horse's harness and looks at her; but he does not make any remark.

The roads are good, the day heavenly, and as they bowl along Leslie leans back, wrapped in a supreme content. Her father's voice discoursing of "art" floats now and again toward her, the thud, thud of the horses' hoofs makes pleasant music; and if she should tire of the pretty scenery, there is the handsome face of a good-tempered young man beside her to look at for a change.

Leslie does not know very much about driving; but she knows that he is driving well, that the horses, fresh and high-mettled as they are, are thoroughly under his control; and, half-unconsciously, she finds herself admiring the way in which he handles the whip and the reins.

"May one ask what you are thinking of, Miss Leslie?" he says, glancing at her, after a long silence.

"I was wondering which I liked best—sailing or driving," she replies.

"But you haven't driven yet," he says. "Would you like to drive?"

Leslie shakes her head.

"I should drive them into a ditch, or they would run away with me," she says, smiling.

"Not a bit of it," he retorts; "and I know you are not afraid, because you said last night that you never were afraid."

"Did I say that?" she says. "What wonderful things one says in the moonlight!"

"See here," he says. "I'll show you how to hold the reins."

"If I am not afraid, they will be, if they think you are going to transfer these wild animals to my guidance," and she glances over her shoulder.

"Oh, they're all right," he says, carelessly. "Give me your hand. No, the left one. That's it."

He takes it and opens the slim fingers, and inserts the reins in their proper places; and as he does so notices, if he did not notice last night, how beautifully shaped and refined the small hand is.

"That's right. Now take the whip in your right hand, and—how do you feel?"

"As if I were chained to two romping lions, and they were dragging me off the box."

He laughs, the frank, free laugh which Leslie thinks the pleasantest she ever heard.

"You'll make a splendid whip!" he says, encouragingly. "Hold 'em tight, and don't be afraid of them. Directly you begin to think they are getting too many for you, set your teeth hard, hold 'em like a vise, and give 'em each a flick. So! See? They know you're master then."

The ivory white of Leslie's face is delicately tinted with rose, her eyes are shining brightly, her heart beating to the old tune, "Happiness."

"There is a cart coming, and there isn't room. Oh, dear!" and she begins to get flurried.

"Plenty of room," he says, coolly. "You should shout to the man! But I'll do that for you," and he wakes the sleeping wagoner with a shout that causes the man to spring up and drag his horses aside as if Juggernaut were coming down upon him. "See? That's the way! Oh, you'll do splendidly, and I shall be quite proud of you. I'm fond of driving. Do you know, I've often thought if the worst came to the worst that I'd take to a hansom cab."

Leslie stares at him.

"A duke driving a hansom cab would be rather a novelty, wouldn't it?" she says, with a smile.

To her surprise, his face flushes, and he turns his head away. What has she said? At this moment, fortunately for Yorke's embarrassment, the duke remarks with intentional distinctness:

"Are you insured against accidents, Miss Lisle?"

Leslie holds out the reins.

"You see," she says, "they are getting frightened; and not without cause."

But he will not take the reins from her.

"I know you are enjoying it," he says, just as a schoolboy would speak. "You're all right; I'll help you if you come to a fix. Give that off one a cut, he is letting the other do all the work."

"Which is the off one?" she asks, innocently.

He points to it.

"That's the one. So called because you don't let him off."

It is a feeble joke, but Leslie rewards it with a laugh far and away beyond its merits, and he laughs in harmony.

"You seem to be enjoying yourselves up there," says the duke. "Pray hand any joke down."

"It is Miss Leslie making puns," responds Yorke.

"Now you are getting tired," he says, after a mile or two.

"How do you know?" she asks, curiously.

"Because I can see your hands trembling," he replies. "Give me the reins now, and if you are a good girl you shall drive all the way home."

It is a little thing that he should have such regard for her comfort, but it does not pass unnoticed by Leslie, as she resigns the reins with a "Thank you, your grace."

His face clouds again, however, and he bestows an altogether unnecessary cut on the horses, who plunge forward.

"There is St. Martin, and there is the castle," she says, presently. "Is it not pretty?"

"Very," he assents, but he looks round inquiringly. "I'm looking for some place in which to put the cattle up," he explains. "Horses don't care much for ruins, unless there are hay and oats."

"There is a small inn at the foot of the castle," says Leslie.

"That's all right then," he rejoins, cheerfully. "Hurry up now, my beauties, and let's show them what Vinson's nags can do."

They dash up the road to the inn at a clinking pace, and pull up in masterly style.

The landlord and a stable boy come running out and Yorke flings them the reins. Then he helps Leslie down, and goes round to the back to assist the duke.

"I suppose we shall be able to get some lunch here Yorke?" he says, as he leans on his sticks.

"Lunch indoors on a day like this? Not much!" retorts Yorke, scornfully. "Out with that hamper, Grey, and get this yokel to help you carry it to the tower. You can walk as far as that, Dolph? Miss Lisle will show you the way."

At the sound of her name Leslie turns from the rustic window into which she had been mechanically looking.

"Oh, yes. There has been another party here this morning," she adds.

"How do you know that?" asks Yorke.

"Because I can see the remains of their luncheon on the table," she says, laughing.

"Yes, sir," says the landlord. "Party of three, sir; two gentlemen and a lady."

"Thank goodness they have gone!" says Yorke. "You go on. I'll go and see that the horses are rubbed down and fed; I owe that to Vinson, anyhow."

He is not long in following them, but by the time he has reached the tower, Grey has unpacked the basket, and laid out a tempting lunch. There is a fowl, a ham, an eatable-looking fruit tart, cream, some jelly, the crispiest of loaves, and firmest of butter, and a couple of bottles with golden tops.

"Where did you get this gorgeous spread, Yorke?" inquires the duke.

"Oh, I was out foraging early this morning," he says, carelessly. "Now, Miss Leslie, you are the presiding genius. Of course the salt has been forgotten; it always is."

"No, it has not!" says Leslie, holding it up triumphantly. "Nothing has been forgotten. You have brought everything."

"Including an appetite," he says, brightly, and as he opens a bottle of champagne, he sings:

"The foaming wine of Southern France."

"Yes, I wonder how many persons who read that in their Tennyson realize that it is champagne?" says the duke, brightly.

They seat themselves—cushions have been brought from the wagon for Leslie and the duke—and the feast begins.

"Some chicken, Miss Leslie? This is going to be a failure as a picnic; it isn't going to rain," says Yorke.

"And I rather miss the cow which usually appears on the scene and scampers over the pie," says the duke. "I suppose your grace couldn't manage a cow on a tower."

Yorke looks at him, half angrily.

"Oh, cut that!" he mutters, just loud enough to reach the duke.

Mr. Lisle looks round with his glass in his hand.

"I must find a spot for my sketch," he says.

"All right, presently," says Yorke. "Pleasure first always, as the man said when he killed the tax collector. Miss Lisle have you sworn never to drink more than one glass of champagne?"

But Leslie shakes her head, and declines the offered bottle, and her appetite is soon appeased.

"Shall we leave these gourmands, and find a particularly picturesque study for your father, Miss Lisle?" suggests Yorke; "that is if he is bent on sketch——."

He stops suddenly, for a woman's laugh has risen from the green slope beneath them. It is not an unmusical laugh, but it is unpleasantly loud and bold, and the others start slightly.

"That is the other party," says Leslie.

"It is to be hoped that they are not coming up here. If they should, you will have an opportunity of seeing how I look when I scowl, Miss Lisle," he says.

Leslie gets up and goes to the battlements.

"No; they are going round the other side," she says.

"Heaven be thanked!"

"Too soon!" she rejoins, with a laugh; "they are coming back. What a handsome girl!"

Standing talking and laughing beneath her are two men and a girl. The latter is handsome, as Leslie says, but there is something in the face which, like the laugh, jars upon one. She is dark, of a complexion that is almost Spanish, has dark eyes that sparkle and glitter in the sunlight, and raven hair; and if the face is not perfect in its beauty, her figure nearly approaches the acme of grace. It is lithe, slim, mobile; but it is clad too fashionably, and there is a little too much color about it.

She stands laughing loudly, unconscious of the silent spectator above her, for a moment or two; then, perhaps made aware by that mysterious sense which all of us have experienced, that she is being looked at she looks up, and the two girls' eyes meet. She turns to say something to her companions, and at that moment Yorke joins Leslie.

He looks down at the group below.

"That's the party, evidently," he begins. Then he stops suddenly; something like an oath starts from his lips, and he puts his hand none too gently on Leslie's arm.

"Come away," he says, sharply, and yet with a touch of hoarseness, or can it be fear, in his voice. "Come away, Miss Lisle!"

And Leslie, as she draws back in instant obedience, sees that his face has become white to the lips.

At the same moment, a voice—it must be that of the girl beneath, floats up to them, a lively "rollicking" voice, singing this refined and charming ditty:

"Yes, after dark is the time to lark, Although we sleep all day; To pass the wine, and don't repine, For we're up to the time of day, dear boys, We're up to the time of day!"

CHAPTER IX.

THE PICNIC.

As the words of the music-hall song rise on the clear air, Leslie turns away. No respectable woman could have sung such a song, and she is not surprised that her companion, and host, has bidden her "come away."

She steps down from the battlement in silence, and as she does so glances at him. His face is no longer pale, but there is a cloud upon it, which he is evidently trying to dispel. She thinks, not unreasonably, that it is caused by annoyance that she should have heard the song, and she is grateful to him.

The cloud vanishes, and his face resumes something of its usual frank light-heartedness, but not quite all.

"We'll give those folks time to get clear away before we begin our exploration, Miss Lisle," he says, casually, but with the faintest tone of uneasiness in his voice. "That is the worst of these show places, one is never sure of one's company. 'Arriet and 'Arry are everywhere, nowadays."

"Why should they not be?" says Leslie, with a smile. "The world is not entirely made for nice people."

"No, I suppose not," he assents; "and I suppose you are going to say that they had better be here than in some other places, and that it might do 'em good; that's the sort of thing that's talked now. I'm not much of a philanthropist, but that's the kind of thing that good people always say."

"They seemed very happy," says Leslie.

"Who?" he asks, almost sharply. "Oh, those people? Yes; Mr. Lisle ought to get a good sketch somewhere hereabouts," and he leads her back to the duke and Mr. Lisle.

The duke looks up. Grey has made a "back" for him with the cushions and the hampers, and he's smoking in most unwonted contentment.

"Back already!" he says. "I thought you had gone to prospect?"

"So we had," responds Yorke, "but we were alarmed by savages from a neighboring island." He lights a cigar as he speaks. "We are going to give them time to get away in their canoes, as Robinson Crusoe did, you know. By the way, Miss Lisle, if you will sit down, I will reconnoiter and report."

Leslie sinks down beside her father, and Yorke strolls leisurely to the steps leading from the tower.

He pauses there a moment or two, listening, then goes down. At the foot of the steps on the grassy slope he stops again, and the cloud comes on his face darker than before.

"It must be a mistake," he mutters. "It couldn't be she, and yet——."

He walks on a few paces, and at the foot of the tower comes upon traces of the "savages"—a champagne bottle, empty, of course, and a newspaper.

He takes the latter up mechanically, then unfolds it and turns to the column of theatrical advertisements, and sees the following:

"Diadem Theater Royal. Notice. In consequence of serious indisposition, Miss Finetta will not play this evening."

With an exclamation which is very near an oath, he flings the paper from him and walks on, and as he goes round the base of the tower he is almost run into by one of the gentlemen whom Leslie saw with the dark young lady of the song.

They both stop short and start, then the new-comer exclaims, with a laugh:

"Hello, Auchester! Well, I'm——."

"Hush! Be quiet!" says Yorke, almost sternly, and with an upward glance.

"Eh?" says the other, "what's the matter? Who the duse would have expected to see you here?"

"I might say the same," retorts Yorke, with about as mirthless a smile as it is possible to imagine.

"How did you come here?"

"Why, by boat," responds the other. "Didn't I tell you so? What have you done with my nags?"

"They are all right," says Yorke. "Come this way, will you? Keep close to the tower, if you don't mind."

The young fellow follows him, with a half-amused, half-puzzled air.

"What's it all mean? Why this mystery, my dear boy?" he asks.

Yorke, having got him out of sight and hearing of the three on the tower, faces him, and instead of replying to his question, asks another.

"Was that Finetta with you just now, Vinson?"

"Yes," says Lord Vinson, at once; "of course it was. Didn't you see her, know her?"

Yorke nods curtly.

"Yes. What is she doing here? How did she come here with you?"

"The simplest thing in the world," replies Lord Vinson. "After you'd left me this morning, I was wondering who I should hunt up to come for a sail, when I saw her coming down the street. You might have knocked me down with a feather."

"I dare say. Well?"

Lord Vinson looks rather aggrieved at being cut so short, but goes on good-temperedly enough.

"She spotted me at once, and the first question she asked was, had I seen you?"

"Well?" demands Yorke, as curtly as before.

"Well, I didn't know what to say for the moment, because I thought perhaps you wouldn't care for her to know."

A faint expression of relief flits across Yorke's face, but it disappears at Vinson's next words.

"She saw me hesitate, and of course knew that I had seen you. 'It's no use your playing it low down on me, my dear boy,' she said, laughing—you know her way. 'You couldn't deceive a two-months-old calf, if you tried. You've seen him, and he's here somewhere.' It was no use trying to deceive her, as she said, and I had to own up that I had seen you this morning, and—that you borrowed my rig."

Yorke bit his lip, and nodded impatiently.

"She took it very well, she did indeed. She only laughed and said that she knew you had left town for some fishing; and, being sick of London herself, she had sent a certificate to say she was down with low or high, or some kind of fever, I forget which, and had to run down here for a bit of a holiday with her brother—or her uncle, I don't know which it is."

Yorke looks round with ill-concealed anxiety.

"Oh, it's all right," says Lord Vinson; "they've gone on to the inn. I came back for my stick. There it is. Well, I thought the best thing I could do was to ask them to come for a sail, and it took her ladyship's fancy, and here we are, don't you know."

Yorke stands with downcast, overclouded face, and the young viscount, after regarding him attentively, says:

"Look here, Auchester, I know what it is, you don't want to run against her just now. Got friends up there, eh?" and he nods his head in the direction of the tower.

"No, I do not want to see her, and I certainly don't want her to see me," assents Yorke. "If you can manage to take her away, Vinson!"

He lays his hand on the young fellow's shoulder, and Vinson, who is never so delighted as when doing a service for his friend, nods intelligently.

"I see. All right, you leave it to me." He pulls out his watch. "I'll get her away at once; in fact, it's time we started. Don't you be uneasy."

"Thanks," says Yorke, and his brow lifts a little. "When does she go back?"

"To-night; she plays to-morrow."

Yorke's brow clears completely, and he smiles.

"Off with you, then," he says. "I'm awfully obliged to you, Vinson. You are right; I don't want the—the people I am with to see her."

Vinson looks up at the tower curiously, and rather wistfully.

"No, my dear boy, I'm not going to introduce you," says Yorke, with a smile. "I'm too anxious to be rid of you—and her. See them safe on board the train to-night, and if anything occurs to prevent them going, send me a message to-morrow morning. I'll give you the address——." He stops. "No, never mind. Make them go to-night. Tell her she'll lose her engagement, anything, but see that she goes."

Vinson grins.

"I'll tell her you've gone back to town," he says.

Yorke colors.

"Woodman, spare the lie," he says, with forced levity. "No need to tell her that."

"No, it wouldn't do, come to think of it. She'd find out I'd sold her when she'd got back, and then——." He whistled, significantly. "I like Finetta with her claws in, don't you know. I think you're the only man that's not afraid of her."

Yorke smiles again.

"Well, do what you like," he says. "But go now, there's a good fellow; and for Heaven's sake, don't let her come this way again. We heard her singing!"

Vinson laughs.

"Yes, if you were within a mile of her you couldn't help doing that," he says, dryly. "Well, good-by, old chap. Don't trouble about the nags."

"They are all right," says Yorke. "I'll bring them back safe and sound——."

"When the coast's clear," finishes the young fellow; and with a smile and a nod, he picks up his stick, and goes off.

Yorke Auchester stands where his friend has left him, and looks out to sea, with a troubled countenance; stares so long, and so lost in thought that it would seem as if he had forgotten his own party. It is not often that the young man has a moody fit, but he has it now, and very badly.

But presently there comes down to him the faint sound of Leslie Lisle's soft, musical laugh—how striking a contrast to that of the young lady whom he has just got rid of! and he wakes from his unpleasant reverie and climbs up to the tower.

The duke is leaning back with an amused and interested smile on his face, which is turned towards Leslie, and it is evident that he is happier and more contented than usual.

"Miss Lisle has just been giving me a description of the Portmaris folks. You have missed something, Yorke," he says, with a laugh. "Have the savages disappeared?"

"Quite," says Yorke; "and if Miss Lisle and her father would like to look round, the coast is now clear."

"You go, papa," says Leslie, with her usual unselfishness; "and I will stay with Mr. Temple."

The duke glances at her.

"You will do nothing of the kind," he says. "I am not going to impose upon your good nature, Miss Lisle. Besides, I dare say, I shall take forty winks."

Leslie hesitates a moment, then she gets up and goes for the easel; but Yorke is too quick for her.

"Come along, Mr. Lisle," he says, touching him on the arm, while he stands looking from the edge of the tower absently, and the three descend.

"Now, this strikes me as a good place," says Yorke, setting up the easel. "Don't know much about it you know, but it seems to me that the outline and the——."

"Excellent; yes, very good," assents the artist, eagerly getting out his drawing paper. "Yes, I can make a picture of this. You need not wait," he adds. "You will want to talk and——."

"I see," says Yorke. "Come along, Miss Lisle; we're evidently not wanted."

They stroll away side by side, and slowly descend the grassy slope, which gradually becomes broken by rock, which kindly nature, who has always an eye to effect, has clothed with ferns and moss and lichen.

"I suppose I ought to show you the hermit's cell?" says Leslie. "Everybody sees it."

"By all means," he assents, but rather absently—the loud laugh of Finetta, the music-hall song are still echoing hideously in his ears. "Which hermit?"

"Didn't you know?" she says, lightly stepping from stone to stone. "There was a hermit here once ever so long ago. Here is his cell," and she stops before a cavity in the rocks, a deliciously shady nook, overhung with honeysuckle and wild clematis which perfume the air.

Yorke looks in. Somebody since the hermit's time, had been kind enough to fix a comfortable seat in the little cell, from which a delightful view of the sea and the cliff can be obtained.

"Let us sit down while you tell me about him," he says.

Leslie seats herself, and looks out at the greenery at her feet and wide-stretching blue of sea and sky beyond; and he takes his place beside her, but looks at her instead of the view. "The proper study of mankind is—woman."

"There really was a hermit here ever so long ago," she says, dreamily. "They talk of him at Portmaris even now. He was a very great man in his time, but I am afraid not a very good one. It is said that he killed his best friend in a duel, and, that smitten with remorse for his crime and his foolish life, he vowed that he would never set eyes on mortal man again. So he came and lived in this cell, which he dug out with his own hands, and spent the rest of his life in prayer and meditation. Every day the village folks, and sometimes the pilgrims who visited his shrine, placed food on the ledge of the little window; but though they could hear his voice in prayer or singing hymns, no one ever saw his face, nor did he ever look out upon those who came to visit him."

"He must have been fearfully unhappy," says Yorke, in a low voice, for the soft, subdued tones seem to cast a spell over him.

"No, they say not; for he was often heard, especially after he had been living here for some years, to be singing cheerfully; but that was after he had received his sign."

"His sign?" he asks.

"Yes. He prayed that if Heaven forgave him his sins, and accepted his penitence, it would render the birds tame enough to come at his call."

"And did they?"

"Yes. The pilgrims to the shrine often saw a thin hand thrust through the window with a hedge sparrow or thrush perched upon it, and the rabbits, there were numbers of them, here, would come when he called, and let him feed them with the remains of his frugal fare. One day the village people received no answer when they called to him, not even the Pax Vobiscum, which amply repaid them for their pious charity. They waited two days, and then they entered the cell, and found him lying dead on his stone pallet, and a wild dove was resting on his breast. It flew away as they entered, but it was seen hovering about the cell for years afterward, and the Portmaris people say that a dove is always near here, even now."

If Yorke had read the story of the Hermit of St. Martin in a book—he didn't read many books, unfortunately—it would not have affected him at all, but told by this lovely girl, in a voice hushed with sympathetic awe and reverence, it moves him strangely.

"It's a pity there are not more hermits," he says, "a pity a man can't leave the world in which he has made himself such a nuisance, and have a little time to be quiet and repent."

"Yes, your grace," assents Leslie.

He looks at her quickly, and then away to the sea again.

"I wonder whether you'd be offended if I asked a favor of you, Miss Lisle."

"What is it?" she says, lightly. "In the old times the proper reply was, 'Yea, unto half my kingdom,' but I haven't any kingdom."

"Oh, it isn't much," he says. "I was only going to ask you if you would be kind enough not to address me as 'your grace.'"

Leslie looks at him with her slow smile, and a faint blush.

"Is it wrong?" she asks, apologetically. "I didn't know. You see, I have not met many dukes."

He strikes at the sandy pebbles which form the floor of the good hermit's cave, with his stick.

"Oh—oh, it's right enough to call a duke 'your grace,'" he says, hurriedly, "but I'd rather you didn't call me so."

"I'm glad it was right," she rejoins, with an air of relief. "I thought that perhaps I'd committed some awful blunder."

"No, no," he says. "But don't, please. I have a decided objection to it. You see I'm rather a republican than otherwise—everybody is a republican nowadays, don't you know." Oh, Yorke, Yorke! "There will be no dukes or any other titles presently."

"But until that time arrives what should one call you?" asks Leslie, not unreasonably. "Is 'my lord' right?"

"It's better," he admits, "but I don't care much about that from friends, you know. I'm afraid you think it's rather presumptuous of me to call you a friend."

"'An enemy' would sound rude and ungrateful after your and Mr. Temple's kindness," she says, as lightly as before.

"My name is Yorke—one of 'em, and it's the name I like best. I dare say that you have noticed that Mr.—Mr. Temple calls me by it?"

"Yes," says Leslie.

"So it sounds more familiar to me, and—and nicer. I suppose a man has a right to be called what he likes."

"I imagine so," says Leslie.

"Then that's a bargain," he says, cheerfully, as if the matter were disposed of. "This place," he goes on, as if anxious to get away from the subject, "reminds me of Scotland a little bit. You only want a salmon river. I've spent many a day fishing and shooting in a solitude as complete as the hermit's. You get scared at last by the stillness and the silence, and begin to think that all creation has gone to sleep, and are afraid to move lest you should wake it; and then while you stand quite still beside the stream, something comes flitting down the mountain side—something with great antlers and big mournful eyes, and it steps into the water close beside you, and takes a drink, looking round watchfully. Then up you jump and give a shout, and away the stag goes, and all creation's awake again."

It is Leslie's turn to listen now, and she does so with half-parted lips.

"Then at night you go out with a gun, and you lie down flat amongst the bracken, and keep your eyes open, and after a while when you are just feeling tired of it, and thinking what an idiot you are not to be in bed, or at any rate, beside a cozy fire with a pipe, you hear a flap, flap in the air, and a couple of heron come sailing between you and the moon, and you raise your gun carefully and quietly—awfully sharp chap the heron—and down comes one of 'em, and perhaps, if you have any luck, the other with the second barrel. Then you load up again and wait, and after a time, if your luck holds good, a flush of wild duck come flipperty, flopperty, above your head and you bring one or two of them down. And all the time the stream ripples and babbles on, and the soft wind plays through the pines, and——." He stops with a laugh and that peculiar look which expresses shyness in a man. "I beg your pardon, I forgot; I mean, I must be boring you to death."

"No, you were not," says Leslie, quietly, and with a little sigh.

"I forgot that ladies don't care for sport, except hunting, some of them. They like to hear about London, and all the gossip there."

Leslie shakes her head.

"I'm afraid I'm very singular, then," she says. "For I would rather hear about fishing and shooting, if it is all like that you have been telling me of."

"But it isn't," he says, with a laugh. "Sometimes the birds don't come, and the fish won't rise, and instead of catching any you catch a cold. And then you go back to London, and swear that's it's the best place after all; but after a little while you get sick of it again, and think if you could only get on to a Scotch moor, you'd be happy."

"Man never is, but always to be blest," says Leslie.

"Yes, because men are such fools that they spoil their lives before they know where they are," he says. "I once saw a man try to swim across the Thames, for a wager, with a ten-pound weight round his neck. He would have been drowned, if they hadn't picked him up pretty smartly. It's the same in life——." He stops suddenly and laughs rather shortly. "We'll get on to a more cheerful topic. There's a hawk, see?" and he points to a bird circling in the vault of blue.

"I was wondering what it was," says Leslie. "You must have good eyes. Do you know all the birds when you see them?"

"Nearly all, I think," he replies. "Horses, and dogs, and birds, I know a little about, but I don't know anything else. I think I should have made a decent gamekeeper or horse breaker; I'm not fit for anything else. But sometimes I console myself with something I read in the paper the other day; the fellow said that there were far too many clever people in the world, and that very soon it would be quite a distinction not to have painted a picture, or written a book, or done something in the scientific way. I'm on the safe road to distinction, Miss Lisle. There isn't a bigger dunce in Portmaris than I am."

So they talk. It is not much. It is neither witty nor wise; it is just the pleasant, aimless chatter of two young people who are almost strangers; and yet so absorbed and interested are they, that they do not note how time flies, that the sun is sinking in the west, and that the shadows are stealing over hill and dale.

Leslie is perfectly at her ease. She has almost forgotten, quite forgotten for the time, indeed, that the young man sitting beside her with his arms folded behind his head, and talking of his fishing and his shooting, and of the strange beasts and birds and fishes he has seen, killed, or captured, is a duke; and he, Yorke, always ready to be happy, to meet the sweet goddess Happiness, half-way, is filled with a strange feeling of peace, that yet is not peace, which at times almost startles him.

In all his life he has not met with a girl like this; so simple, yet so sweetly wise; so good, and yet so bright and winsome. He is beginning to know some of the multitudinous expressions of the beautiful face, to lay traps for the slow heart-winning smile, to set snares for drawing the clear, darkly gray eyes toward his, that he may look into their depths. Her voice makes sweet melody in his ears, and stirs his heart with a vague thrill which will trouble him presently, trouble him very much. It seems to him one moment that he has known her for years, the next that she has just lighted from the clouds, or risen from the depths of the blue sea, and that he shall never know her or get any nearer to her.

And under the influence of these sensations, which summed up as a whole, are as a potent spell, he forgets the dark girl whom he has persuaded Vinson to take away out of sight, forgets the compact that he has made with the duke, forgets that he is sailing under false colors and is deceiving the girl beside him—forgets, in short, everything, save that she is beside him, and that he has the delight of looking at, and talking to, and, ah, best of all, of listening to her.

He would be content to sit there—so that she were by his side—till the end of the world, but a shadow falling across the entrance to the hut rouses Leslie to a sense of the flight of the common enemy.

"Why, it must be late," she says, with the air of one making a great discovery.

"Is it?" he says. "Must we really go? It is very jolly here—it is as jolly as it was last night on the water."

But he gets up and follows her, and they make their way back. As they emerge on the hill-side, they find that the wind has dropped, and is sighing across the downs rather plaintively; and Yorke, looking up, sees a cloud, which, though it is not much bigger than a man's hand, is full of warning.

"Did you happen to bring an umbrella with you?" he asks, with affected carelessness.

Leslie laughs.

"Not even a sunshade. Why?"

"Nothing," he says, inwardly calling himself opprobrious names for not providing the Englishman's traveling companion.

"Do you think it is going to rain?" she asks. "Oh, no, it isn't possible."

"Everything is possible in this charming climate of ours," he says. "Well, Mr. Lisle, how are you getting on?" he asks, as they go up to the artist, still hard at work.

He looks up with a start. To him they have only been absent, say, a quarter of an hour.

"It is difficult," he says. "Very. One needs time—time."

"We'd better come another day," says Yorke. "Oh, you have got on famously," and he keeps his countenance capitally as he looks at the sketch. "I'll carry your easel," and he folds it up, and puts it over his shoulder.

They find the duke waiting for them at the bottom of the tower, and seeing them all together, he does not suspect that the two young people have been spending the whole afternoon tete-a-tete.

"I was just going off without you," he says, addressing all three, but looking at Leslie's face, which wears a rapt and dreamy expression.

"It's well you didn't," retorts Yorke. "You and Grey would never have reached home alive. Miss Leslie and I are the only persons who can manage these nags. But come on," and he glances upward—that cloud has grown considerably since they left the hermit's hut—and leads the way to the inn.

"Now, ma'am," he says to the landlady, in his frank, and genial way. "Got the kettle boiling? Right! Let us have some tea while the horses are being put to."

Then he goes round to the stable, inspects the horses, and is back in time to hand Leslie a cup of the beverage, which be the hour what it may, is always welcomed by fair women.

"Now up you get," he says, after surreptitiously tipping everybody—landlord, hostler, rosy-cheeked maid, all round. "Miss Leslie, we can't get on without you in front, you know," he remarks, as Leslie is about to go inside; and he helps her to the box.

The horses are fresh and eager for work, and for a time he drives, but presently he puts the reins in her hands.

"According to promise," he says. "Hold 'em tight while I," and he bends down and searches for something under the box seat.

"Oh, how beautifully they go," she says, half to herself. "What is it you are looking for, your gra—Lord Yorke?"

"Never you mind," he says. "You look after your horses."

Leslie laughs, and laughs again as he comes up, red in the face, and with a Scotch wrap in his hand.

"Are you so cold?" she asks.

"Very," he responds. "It's going to snow, I fancy."

"Why, it is quite close," she says, removing her eyes for a moment from the horses to glance at him with smiling surprise. "It seems hotter than it has been all day."

As she speaks, a low rumbling rolls over their heads and a flash of light cuts across the sky.

"That is lightning," she exclaims.

"It was rather like it," he admits, dryly.

"Did you bring any gamps?" asks the duke.

"Nary one," replies Yorke, grimly. "Slang away, I can bear it—and I deserve it," he mutters, glancing at the girlish figure beside him.

Mr. Lisle looks round absently.

"I'm afraid—it—it is going to rain," he says.

In another minute it is raining. Yorke takes the rug in both hands, and deftly wraps it round Leslie.

"Oh, no, please," she says, and she glances behind her. "Give it to him—Mr. Temple."

"It would be more than my life is worth," he says. "I dare not offer it to him. Please let me fasten it. How shall I? Give me a hairpin!"

"You must hold the horses, then," she says.

"I can see one sticking out," he says.

"Well, take it," she responds, innocently and all unconsciously, for she is thinking of her driving far more than the rain or the rug or anything else.

He looks at her intent and absorbed face, and puts up his hand and draws the hairpin from its soft and silken nest, and she, unheeding, does not know that his hand trembles, actually trembles, as he fastens the rug round her.

"Now give me the reins," he says, "and keep your head down; we are in for a regular storm."

As he speaks, the rain comes down with a whiz, as if it meant to wash them off the box.

Leslie laughs.

"After all, it is a proper picnic," she says.

But the next instant her laugh dies away, for the heavens seem to open before them, a peal of thunder roars like the discharge of a park of artillery just above their heads, and the horses, startled and frightened, stop dead short, then rear up on end.

The carriage sways, and for a moment it seems as if it were going over, and Leslie is forced up close against Yorke.

He holds the terrified horses with one strong hand, against him.

"All right," he says, in a low voice. "Don't be afraid, Leslie!" His arm holds her, supports her, presses her to him, perhaps unconsciously. "You are quite safe, dearest, dearest."

Low as his voice is, Leslie hears him, or—she asks herself—is it only fancy?

For a moment, one brief moment, she cowers, nestling to him, her face hidden against his shoulder; then with a start, she draws away, and with her face red and white by turns, looks straight before her.

And through the roar of thunder, and the hissing of the rain, she hears those words re-echoing, "Leslie, dearest—dearest!"

CHAPTER X.

YORKE IN LOVE.

The great changes of our lives come suddenly. Swift as the lightning's flash is the revelation to Yorke that he loves the girl who sits beside him.

Half-unconsciously he had uttered the words which are still ringing in her ears, but he knows that his heart has been saying "dearest" all day long.

He knows now what that strange, peaceful happiness meant which made him feel as if he would be content to pass the rest of his life by her side in the hermit's cell.

And he knows that this is no transient passion which will have its day, and pass, leaving not a wreck behind, as so many passions alas! have passed with him. To every one of the sons of men, it is said, comes once in his life, the great all-absorbing love which wipes out all others, and which shall make of all his days an endless misery or a surpassing happiness; and this love has come to Yorke.

In an instant, as it were, it seems to have wrought a change in him. Gay, reckless, thoughtless, an hour ago, he is serious enough now.

His heart is beating quickly, furiously; his strong hands tremble as he holds the terrified horses, and urges them on with whip and voice; and yet, though apparently engrossed with them, thinking more of the silent girl beside him.

She is so silent! She scarcely seems to move, but sits, with the rug concealing her face, her head bent down.

"What have I said?" he asks himself; in truth he scarcely knows. It is as if his heart had suddenly become the master of his voice and actions, and had made a helpless slave of him.

If she would only speak! He longs past all description to hear her voice, even though it should be in anger and indignation; but she does not speak. He lifts his face to the sweeping rain and almost welcomes it. The storm is in harmony with the tempest of awakened passion which rages in his breast. He does not dare to speak to her, scarcely ventures to look her way, and he sits as silent as herself, while the horses dash along the streaming road and up the Portmaris street.

"We might have come by boat, there is water enough," says the duke, dryly. "Miss Lisle, I am afraid you are wet through. Pray get in at once, or you will catch cold."

She stands up on the box, and Yorke goes to unfasten the wrap, but she is too quick for him, and, taking out the hairpin, lets the rug fall, and stands before his eyes, her slim, graceful figure swayed a little away from him as if she did not want him to touch her.

He gets down, and offers her his hand, but she springs from the box lightly, stands a moment, then with a low-voiced "Good-night—and thank you," follows her father into the house.

The duke looks after her.

"The poor child is wet through and chilled," he says, sympathetically. "It's a pity you didn't think of a mackintosh, Yorke. What are you going to do with the rig and horses?"

Yorke looks down at him as if he scarcely heard or understood, for a moment; then he says, absently, like a man only half recovered from a stunning blow:

"The horses—oh, I'll find a place for them."

"You might take them to the station, your grace; they could put them up there in the good stable," suggests Grey.

"Yes, yes; and look sharp," says the duke. "We'll have some dinner by the time you are back. Will you have a glass of whisky and water before you go?"

But Yorke shakes his head almost impatiently.

"I'm all right," he says, curtly, and he drives off.

He sees the horses made comfortable in the stable at the station, and helps to rub them down and litter them; then he turns back.

But at the top of the street he pauses. He cannot face the duke just yet. There is that in his face, in his voice, he knows, which will reveal his secret.

He turns off to the right, and makes his way along a little used road toward the sea.

He is wet through, but he does not notice it; he scarcely knows where he is going until he stands on the edge of the sea.

"I love her!" he murmurs. "Yes, I love her. There is no woman in all the world like her! So good, so gentle, so beautiful."

He thinks of all the girls he has seen, talked with, danced with, and flirted with; but there is none like Leslie.

"I am a lost man if I do not get her!" he says to himself. "And how can I get her?" He groans, and pushes his hat off his brow, that is hot and burning. "She cares nothing for me; why should she? If I was to ask her to be my wife—my wife! How can I?" And he shudders as if some black thought had swept down upon him, and crushed the hope out of him. "How can I? Oh, what a mad, senseless fool I have been! How we chuck our lives away to find out, when it is too late, what it is we've lost. If I had met her a year ago——." He breaks off, and sighs, as he tramps up and down in the rain. "If I could only wipe out that year! But I can't, I can't, though I'd give ten years of the life that's left in me to be able to do it! What would she think—say—if she knew, if I told her? With all her sweet, childlike ways, and all her innocence and purity, she is a woman, and the very goodness for which I love her would fight against me! She looked and spoke like an angel when she was telling me that story about the hermit. An angel! I'm a nice kind of man to fall in love with an angel, and want to marry her! I might as well fall in love with one of those stars." And he looks up despairingly at the diamond lights that are peering through the rift in the clouds.

"Besides," he mutters, "even if—if that other woman weren't in the question," and he sets his teeth, "how could I ask her to marry me? Even if she'd have me—and why should I dare to think that I could win her love? I'm a pauper and worse. And she thinks me a duke! That's another thing! I forgot that idiotic business! Oh, I've tied myself up in every way, and haven't a chance! And yet I love her—I love her! Leslie!" he repeats the name, as Romeo might have repeated Juliet's, finding a torturing joy in its music. "No, there's no hope! Yorke, my boy, you are badly hit. You've laughed at this kind of thing often enough, but your turn has come. And as there is no hope for you, you have got to bear it. The best thing you can do is to clear out in the morning, and blot Portmaris out of the map of England. I mustn't see her again—never again!"

All his nature protests against this resolve, and his heart aches badly, very badly; but he squares his shoulders and sets his teeth hard.

"Yes, that's the only thing to do; to cut and run. There's one comfort, she won't mind. She won't miss me. God knows what I said when I felt her face against my breast; but whatever it was, I've offended her past forgiveness. She wouldn't see me again, I dare say, if I stayed, and so——." He heaves a sigh, which is very much like a groan, and turns homeward.

He finds Grey alone in the room when he enters; the dinner things are still on the table, and Grey looks at him with a rather grave and startled expression.

"I've saved some dinner, your grace," he says.

"'Your grace' be da—hanged!" says Yorke, almost fiercely.

"Yes, my lord," murmurs Grey. "The duke waited for over an hour, and he has gone to bed; I was afraid of a chill, my lord. And your lordship is wet, very wet, still——."

"All right," says Yorke, as politely as he can. "Never mind. Go and see after the duke, and dinner—oh, yes. Thanks, you need not wait."

He tries to eat, but for once his faithful appetite fails him, and he pushes his plate away and gets his pipe, that great consoler in all times of trouble; and this is the worst trouble Yorke Auchester has ever had.

It is well on into the small hours when weary, but oppressed by a ghastly wakefulness, he goes to bed, and there he lies, open-eyed and thoughtful, until the sun floods the room.

He gets up, and as he looks in the glass after his bath, he smiles grimly.

"Only one night of it!" he says. "And a great many similar ones lie before me before I get over this! I wonder whether she has been thinking of me? Why should she? And if she should have been they wouldn't be pleasant thoughts."

He pulls the blinds aside and looks at the house opposite, wondering which is her window; and as he does so, the lover's heart-hunger for a sight of his loved one assails him.

It has still strong possession of him when he goes down the stairs and into the street; but he fights against it. The best thing he can do is not to see Leslie Lisle, but to drive Vinson's horses back to Northcliffe, and take the train from there to London, and—stop there; stop there till in a round of the folly which has suddenly grown so senseless and worthless in his eyes, he has dulled the pain of this, his first real love.

It is early, but Portmaris is alive and very much in evidence. The fishermen are out on the beach, the women are bustling about, the children are playing in the road-way. Some with a huge slice of bread and butter or treacle in their fists; breakfast is evidently a very movable feast with the entire population.

Yorke stands a moment and looks round with a pang of regret.

"I shall think of this place," he says. "Think of it too often to be comfortable. Why couldn't I have come here—and to her—a year ago? What's that song about 'the might have been'? That's how I feel this morning. Oh, lord!"

He strides on with his head drooping, in an attitude very unlike that of Yorke Auchester's usual one; and without the last night's opera song on his lips as is ordinarily the case; and he is near the station, when he hears the laughter of children ahead of him, and looking up, sees a group that make his heart leap, and the blood rush to his face.

Under a great oak in the pretty lane stands no other than Leslie herself, with a child upheld in her arms, and two others clinging to the skirts of her pretty, simple morning dress. The child borne aloft has pulled off her hat, and the sunlight as it comes through the trees, falls in flecks of light and shadow on her hair and upturned face. She is laughing the soft, sweet laugh, which, though he should live to be as old as the old man walking along on the other side of the road, Yorke will never forget, and—she does not see him.

Shall he turn and go back, go back and leave her forever? Better! But he cannot, simply cannot. So he goes on slowly, and it is not until he is close behind her that she hears him.

She turns, the child still held, crowing and struggling in her arms, and a startled look comes into her eyes, and the color flies to her face, and then leaves it pale.

Yorke lifts his hat.

"Good-morning," he says.

Her lips move, and her head bends over the child now lying in her arms, and staring with blue eyes up at the big man who dares to address "Miss Lethlie." Leslie's lips move; no doubt she says "good-morning," in response, though he cannot hear her.

"You are early this morning," he says, and he knows that his voice falters and sounds unnatural, as surely as he knows that his heart is beating like a steam-hammer, and that the longing to cry to her, "Leslie, I love you!" is almost irresistible.

"Yes," she says. "It is so beautiful after the rain——."

She stops, for the word has recalled that homeward drive, the storm, his words—all that she has been thinking of through the long night.

"Yes," he says, vaguely, stupidly. Then he says, suddenly, "That child is too heavy for you——."

"Oh, no; I often carry it," she falters, bending still lower over the pretty face enshrined in the yellow curls.

"But it is," he says. "Let me take it, if it must be carried."

"She would not let you," she says.

"We'll see," he rejoins, scarcely knowing what he is saying; and he holds out his arms.

The mite stares at him, turns and clutches Leslie for a moment, then, with the fickleness of its sex, swings round and holds out its arms to him.

Yorke laughs, and holds it up above his head.

"Now what shall I do with you?" he says, hurriedly. "Take you to London with me. No?" for the child struggles. "For that is where I am going." He puts the child down, and it toddles off with the other two. "Yes, I am going to London, Miss Lisle," he goes on, trying to speak lightly, carelessly.

"Yes?" she says, with downcast eyes, and she stoops to pick up her hat. As she does so, he stoops too; they get hold of it together, and their hands meet.

But for that sudden meeting, that touch of her hand, he could have gone, and the history of Leslie Lisle would have been a very different one; but it is the link which the Fates have been wanting to make their chain complete.

"Leslie!" he cries, scarcely above his breath. "Leslie!" And he takes both her hands and holds them fast, and looks into her eyes, the dark, gray eyes which she lifts to him with a swift fear—or is it a swift joy? mirrored in their clear depths.

"Let—me—go," she falters, with trembling lips.

"No!" he says, desperately. "Not till I have told you that I love you!"

CHAPTER XI.

AN IMPETUOUS AVOWAL.

"I love you!"

Leslie draws her hands from his grasp, and stands with averted face, her bosom heaving, her breath coming with difficulty.

It is so sudden, so swift, this declaration, that she is overwhelmed. The heart of a pure-minded, innocent girl is not unlike a fortress. It withstands many an attack, and is able to repulse the besiegers until the one comes who cries "Surrender!" and at the sound of his voice, before some nameless magic in his presence, her strength goes, the gate is thrown wide open, and the conqueror marches in.

Leslie had been calm and self-possessed enough when Ralph Duncombe was pleading his passionate love, and was able to withstand his urgent prayer, but to Yorke she can find nothing to say; she can only stand with downcast eyes, her heart beating fast, and the gates beginning to open!

He takes her hand, but again she draws it from him, and sinking on to the trunk of a fallen tree, keeps her face, her eyes, from him.

"You are angry?" he says, his usually light and careless voice deep and earnest enough now. "Well, I deserve that. I—I ought not to have told you so suddenly. But——," he leans against a tree close beside her, and looks down at her—"but—well, I couldn't help it. I was going away this morning." His heart gives a little quiver. "I was going away from Portmaris—and from you. I've been thinking of you all night, and I'd decided that that was the best thing to do. It's sudden and—and startling to you, Leslie—Miss Lisle—but it doesn't seem so to me. You see, I suppose I have been getting to love you ever since I saw you on the beach; that's not long ago, I dare say you'll say, but it seems a long time to me—months, ages."

It is almost as if her own heart were speaking, it is just as she has felt. She listens in a kind of amazement at the subtle sympathy between them.

"I have thought of nothing else but you since I saw you. I know that I shall be the happiest man in the world if—if you'll let me go on loving you, and try to love me a little in return, and the most wretched beggar in existence if—if you can't."

He waits a moment, for a strange sensation comes in his throat and stops his speech, usually so fluent and so free. Then, she still remaining silent, he goes on with the same grave, earnest tone, and with the same half-eager, half-hesitating tremor in his voice.

"I've never seen any one like you; I know plenty of women, but none like you, Leslie—I beg your pardon! You see, I always think of you as Leslie. If I were to try and tell you how I feel, I should make a mess of it. I can only say that I love you, I love you!"

With all his ignorance and lack of eloquence he is wise. "I love you," sums up all a woman wants or cares to hear.

"Of course," he goes on in a lower voice, daunted by her silence, her motionless, downcast face, her hidden eyes. "Of course, I can't expect, don't expect you to understand or—or to care for me even a little. You haven't known me long enough or—or—anything about me. All I want is a little hope. If you don't dislike me, right down dislike me, I'll be glad enough, and I'll try and get you to love me a little. You can't love me as I love you; that isn't to be thought of!"

"Is it not?" she thinks, but she says nothing.

Up above their heads a thrush is singing melodiously, and the liquid notes seem to say quite plainly, "I love you." The sun, as it shines between the leaves of the old oak, and touches Yorke's brave, and eager face, is surely smiling, "He loves you!" The stream rippling in a hollow behind them, as it runs laughing down to the sea, is as certainly murmuring, "Love, love, love!"

"You are angry and—and offended," he says, after a pause, during which she has been listening to this harmony of nature's voices. "Well, I deserve it! I ought to have waited until you knew more of me—but you see, as I said, I could not keep it. I had been thinking of you, dreaming of you, all night, and then I saw you suddenly, and I felt as if I must speak, happen what might. If I hadn't seen you, I dare say I could have found heart enough to clear out, and—and hold my tongue; but when I saw you with that little one in your arms, looking so beautiful and so good, just the Leslie I love so dearly, the words rushed out almost before I knew it—and—and——," he squares his broad chest, and tilts his hat back with a gesture which, unlike most gestures, fits him like a glove, "there it is!"

She does not lift her face, does not open the lips that are trembling—if he could only see it; and he waits a moment before he says, sadly, with the lover's despairing note audible through an affected cheerfulness:

"I'm—I'm sorry that I've made a nuisance of myself, and—and worried you. Don't be upset and think anything of it. I ought not to have spoken. I couldn't help loving you, but I might have had the sense to hold my tongue, and taken myself off without distressing you. Don't—don't think any more of it. I'm not worthy of you, not worth a thought from such as you, and—well, I'll say good-by, Miss Lisle."

He puts his hat straight, and braces himself together, so to speak, for the parting; then he bends down and takes her hand, the hand that lies in the lap of the pretty morning frock like a white flower.

She does not draw it away now, and as he holds it, the passion which raises men to a level with the gods, takes possession of him.

"Leslie!" he says, almost hoarsely. "I can't let you go! I love you too much. Look at me, speak to me! Unless you hate me, I must stay and try and make you love me! I can't lose you! You are the only woman I have ever seen or known that I wanted badly! And I do want you! I can't live without you! I can't leave you, knowing that I may never see you again. I can't. Look up, Leslie—dearest—dearest! Tell me straight, once and for all—I will never come back to worry you—once and for all, will you try and love me?"

He takes her other hand—he has got both now, and lifts her, actually lifts her from the tree. She does not resist him, but lets her hands, trembling, remain willing prisoners, and when her face is on a level with his, she raises her eyes and looks at him.

There must be something in the dark gray eyes, something under the shadow of the black lashes, which contains a potent magic; for at sight of it his heart leaps and the blood rushes to his face, then leaves it pale with the intensity of a supreme emotion, an incredible joy, an amazed delight.

"Leslie!" breaks from him, "Leslie!"

Her eyes meet his, steadily, yet shyly, o'er-brimming with the secret which a maiden keeps, hugs closely, while she can. A secret which she is loth to part with, but which the loved one's eyes read so quickly.

"Leslie—do you—ah, dearest, dearest, you do love me!"

She tries to withstand him, to draw away from him, even now; but his passion is too much for her, and the next instant she is folded in his arms and her head lies on his breast.

Sing on happy thrush; but no music even your velvet throat can make shall compare with the music ringing through these two human hearts. A music which shall not die though these same hearts may be torn apart and wrung with anguish; a music which for joy or pain, weal or woe, shall echo through their lives till Death comes with its great silence.

But it is of life and love and joy, and not death or parting, that they are thinking now.

He draws her arm within his as if she had belonged to him for years, or rather as if he wanted to assure himself that she belonged to him, and they pace slowly along the meadow in the shadow of the trees; her hat swings on her hand, her eyes lift, heavy with love, to his face, as he bends down to her his own, eloquent with the devotion and adoration which fill his heart to overflowing. And yet through all the storm of passion that tosses in his breast, he has sense enough to notice how beautiful she is, how lightly and gracefully she walks by his side, how delicious is the pose of the slender neck, the half averted face. This flower that he has found and plucked to wear in his breast is no common weed, but a rare blossom of which an emperor might be proud.

And she—well, she scarcely realizes yet what this is that has happened to her; she only knows that a supreme happiness, a novel joy, so intense as to be almost pain, is thrilling through her; that at one moment she feels inclined to cry and the next to laugh. He is hers! She is to be his wife!—his wife! Oh, what a singular dream! Shall she wake soon? Wake to find that he has gone, and that all that is now happening is but a phantasy, a vision that will fade and leave her desolate.

She starts presently and looks up at him.

"Papa! He—will miss me—wonder where I have gone," she says. "How long have we been here?" and she looks round as if she expected to see the shades of night falling.

He laughs softly, the laugh of a man so completely happy that time has ceased to be of consequence.

"I don't know. What does it matter? Your father will know you are all right. He will think you have gone to the beach, that you are playing with the children—how fond you are of children, dearest."

"Yes, yes," she murmurs.

"I never saw any one go on with them as you do. No wonder they love you; but I suppose everything and every one does. By the way——." He stops, and a faint shadow falls on his face. "I suppose there have been ever so many fellows who've been in love with you?"

She makes a little gesture of indifference, as if the thought was too trivial to be entertained or spoken of. What does it matter who loved her, now?

"That—that letter and the ring?" he says, inquiringly.

She raises her clear eyes to his.

"Do you want me to tell you about them?" she says, in a low voice, as if he had the right to search her soul, and she were wishing that he should do so.

"No, no," he rejoins.

"But I will. He—he who wrote the letter and gave me the ring——."

His face grows cloudier.

"No, no tell me just this. He is nothing to you, you never cared——."

"Never," she says simply. "He has gone—I will tell you."

He presses her face to his to silence her, and a wave of remorse, of self-reproach, sweeps over him.

"No, no, not a word. That is enough for me. You are mine now and always and forever."

"Forever!" she breathes.

"And—and," he hurries on. "I have no right to ask you about the past—the past that did not belong to me. Besides, if I did you would have the right to ask me, and——." He stops suddenly, pale, and trembled.

She looks up at him.

"I ask nothing," she says, in a low voice. "You shall tell me all you want to tell me; just that, and no more."

"My darling, my dearest!" he says, but the trouble still rings in his voice. Shall he tell her? Now is the time. She would forgive him, love him none the less, if he told her all now. Shall he throw himself upon her great love and mercy?

For a moment Yorke's guardian angel hovers near him and whispers, "Tell her, trust her!" but he thrusts the angel aside and silences her.

"I am not worthy of you, dearest," he says; "I can tell you that much: no man is worthy of you! But the best of us couldn't love you better than I do, Leslie. Leslie! Do you know that when I heard your name it seemed to me the prettiest I had ever heard, and as if it belonged to some one I had loved for years? Have you any other name?"

She shakes her head.

"Isn't one enough?" she says, laughing, softly. "I am not big enough for more than one of two syllables. Why, see, yours is only one, or have you got more names? Tell me them? How strange; oh, how strange! I do not know rightly what you are called, and yet——."

"Yet you love me, and promise to be my wife—why don't you say it right out?" he says.

She shakes her head.

"But your names?"

"Oh," he says, carelessly. "There's a string of 'em. Yorke, Clarence, Fitzhardinge Auchester—"

"And Rothbury," she says, with sudden gravity.

He starts slightly, and colors. This foolish whim of the duke's! What is to be done about it now?

"Duke of Rothbury," she goes on, gravely, and with an almost troubled smile. "I—I had forgotten——."

"Go on forgetting!" he says, drawing her arm closer.

"Yes! I—you will not be angry?"

"At nothing you can say, unless it were, 'I do not love you!'"

"I was going to say that I wish I could—that I wish you were not a duke, and had no title of any kind!"

"So do I if you wish it," he says. "What does it matter?"

"But will it not matter?" she asks, her brows coming together. "Will not the people—your people, all those great folks who belong to you, your relations—be angry with me for—for——."

"Stooping to love such a worthless, useless creature as I? Why should they?"

"I—I don't know. Yes I do. It is not girls like me, girls with no title or anything, poor girls who know nothing of the fashionable world, and have no relations above a plain 'Mr.' who ought to marry noblemen. I know enough for that. They will be right to be angry and—and disappointed!"

"Not they!" he says, lightly, but inwardly chafing against the bonds which his promise to the duke has woven round him. "Let them mind their own business!"

"But it is their business!" she says. "What a duke, a well-known nobleman, does, must be everybody's business, and everybody will be astonished and—sorry."

"Wait until they see you!" he says, confidently.

She looks up at him with eyes dewy with gratitude.

"Do you think everybody will see me with your eyes?" she says, in a low voice.

"I think every man will envy me and wish himself in my place!" he responds, promptly.

She shakes her head.

"No no! They will say when they hear of it that you have done wrong, and say it still more decidedly when they see me. Why, I shall not know what to do." She laughs half light-heartedly, half-anxiously. "I shall not know how to begin, even, to play the great lady; I shall make all sorts of mistakes, and call persons by their wrong names and titles. Why, I did not know how to address you, your grace!" And she looks up at him, with parted lips that smile but tremble a little.

He kisses them tenderly, reassuringly.

"You are only chaffing me," he says. "I can see that. You are the last girl in the world to be frightened by anybody. You'd just take your place in any set as naturally as if you'd known it and been in it all your life. Why, do you think I don't know how proud you are?"

"Am I?" she says, self-questioningly. "Yes; I think I was yesterday—until—until now. But now my pride seems to have melted into thin air, and I am only anxious. Do you know what I should do if I were to see that you were even the least bit ashamed of me?"

"What would you do? Something terrible?"

"I should die of shame for your sake!" she says, slowly.

"If you wait till you die of that complaint you'll live to be as old as—what's his name, Methuselah!" and he laughs. "Why, I feel so proud of winning you that I'm trying all I know not to swagger."

She gives his arm just the faintest pressure.

"Oh how foolish, how foolish!" she murmurs. "To be proud of me!"

"I dare say, but I am, you see! I know I've got one of the loveliest women in the world for a wife, and I shall get beastly conceited, I expect, and perfectly unendurable. It isn't every man who wins the love of an angel."

"Ah, don't," she says. "An angel! They will not think me that, but only a commonplace girl, who knows nothing, and is not fit to be—a duchess!"

She utters the word as if he did not like it, and he colors again.

"Tell me," she says, after a moment. "Tell me whom I shall have to fear most. You see, I don't know even if you have a mother—a father. I don't know anything!"

He is silent a moment, mentally execrating the chain of circumstances which compel him, force him, to—yes, deceive her!

"They are both dead," he says, truthfully. "I haven't any near relations—no brother and sister, I mean. I've an uncle, a Lord Eustace and his two sons who's the next to the dukedom—he and they."

"After you?" she says. "I don't understand—how should I?"

"It does not matter," he says, hurriedly.

"Tell me about him then—them. Is he nice? Will he be very angry?"

He laughs.

"No, he's not very nice. He's the miser of the family—you see, and you'll have cause to be ashamed of some of us, dearest! And he won't care the snap of his fingers whom I marry, or what becomes of me."

This would sound singularly improbable to Leslie if she were worldly wise; but she is not. As she says, she simply does not understand or realize.

"I am sorry," she says. "But I don't think it is true."

"You think they are all so proud and fond of me?" he laughs, with a faint tinge of bitterness. "Well, then I've other cousins——."

"Mr. Temple?" she says.

"Yes, Mr.—Mr. Temple," he mutters.

"And what will he say?" she asks, with a smile.

"He? Oh——." He stops. Yes, what will the duke say when he hears that Leslie "has made love," as he will put it, to the supposed duke?

"Look here, dearest," he says, after a pause.

"Why should you or I care a brass farthing what any one thinks or says! The only one I care about is your father."

"Ah, papa!" she murmurs; and she pictures to herself Mr. Lisle's amazement and distress at what he will regard as a "fuss" and disturbance of his placid "artistic" life.

"Are you afraid, Leslie?" Yorke asks.

"I—I don't know. I am all in all to him; and—I do not know what he will say. He will not be pleased; I mean he will see more plainly than I do that I am not fit to be your wife, that I am not suitable for a duchess. And he will say it is so sudden—and it is, is it not? If he had had a little time to—to get used to it——."

"Let us give him time," he says. "I was going to him now straight away to ask him to give you to me; but if you think it better, if you wish it, it shall be exactly as you think and wish, dearest. I will wait for a little while, until he knows me better, and has got used to me. I suppose it would startle and upset him if I were to go now."

"Oh, yes, yes!" she says. "You do not know how nervous he is, and how easily upset."

"I think I can guess," he responds, thoughtfully.

As he has said, it was his intention to go straight to Mr. Lisle and tell him to go to the duke and announce the engagement; but if Leslie wishes the announcement delayed—well, it will be as well! Will it not be better that he should clear up sundry matters in London before the world hears of his betrothal? Besides, how can he go to Mr. Lisle without confessing that he has been masquerading as a duke and explaining why? Before he can do that he must get the duke to release him from this foolish agreement, which, foolish as it is, still binds him.

"What shall we do, dearest?" he asks, looking down at her.

"Let us wait," she murmurs. "Let us wait for a day or two, till my father knows you better, and—and you have had time to think whether it is well that you should stoop so low——." Her voice dies away. The mere thought of losing him is an agony.

"Yes," he says, almost solemnly, "we will wait, but not for that reason, Leslie. I don't want to think about anything of that kind. As to stooping—well, you will learn some day how I love you, and how infinitely above me you are. God grant you will not repent having stooped to me, dearest! Yes, we will wait. After all, it may seem sudden to them, and we will give them a little time to get used to it."

"And meanwhile," she says, with a smile, which is half a sigh of regret, "I will try and realize that I am to be a great lady. It will seem rather hard at first. There ought to be a school at which one could learn how to behave. They used to teach girls how to enter a room, and bow, and courtesy, so that they might not disgrace their belongings."

He holds her at arm's length, and laughs at her, his eyes alight with admiration, and love, and worship.

"I've seen you walk down the street and cross the beach, Leslie," he says. "You don't want any lessons in deportment. I'm thinking you'll give some of 'em points, and beat them easily. Don't you ever look in the glass? Don't you know that you are the loveliest, sweetest woman man ever went mad over?"

"Oh, hush, hush!" she says, putting her finger lightly on his lips, and hiding her crimson face against his breast. "You must be blind! But—oh, stay so, dearest, and never, never see me as I really am!"

CHAPTER XII.

MISS FINETTA.

Two mornings later there rode into the Row at Hyde Park a young lady whose appearance always attracted a great deal of attention. In the first place, she was one of the handsomest, if not the handsomest woman there; in the next, she rode her horse as perfectly as it is possible for a girl to ride; and, lastly, wherever she went, on horseback or on foot, this lady was well known; in fact a celebrity. For she was Miss Finetta.

As she rode in at a brisk canter in the superbly-fitting habit, which seemed an outer skin of the lithe, supple figure, and followed by her correctly clad groom, mounted on a horse as good as that of his mistress, the hats of the men flew off, and the eyeglasses of the women went up, or their owners looked another way. But to smiles or frowns, pleasant nods, or icy stares, Finetta returned the same cool, good-humored smile, the flash of her white teeth and black eyes.

Every now and then London has a fit. Sometimes it takes the shape of hero worship, and down the mob go on their knees to some celebrity, male or female; at others it goes black in the face with hooting and mud-flinging at some object which it has suddenly taken it into its head to hate.

At present all London—all fashionable male London—was in fits of admiration of Finetta; and, strange to say, it had rather more than the usual excuse for its enthusiasm. For she was a remarkable young woman.

Not very long ago she had been playing in company with other girls in the alley in which her father's small coal store was situated; and was perfectly happy when the organ man came into the alley, and she and her playmates danced round that popular instrument.

Her mother wanted her to go to school, or at any rate to help her in the green grocer shop, which was run in conjunction with the coal store; but Finetta—her name at that time was Sarah Ann, by the way—declined to go to school, and confined her ministrations in the shop to stealing the oranges and apples.

Her mother alternately scolded and beat her; her father declared with emphatic and descriptive language, that she would come to no good. And Sarah Ann, taking the scoldings, and the beatings, and the prophecies of a bad end, with infinite good-humor, went on playing hop-scotch, and dancing round the organ, quite happy in her ragged skirts and her black tousled hair, and almost as black face and hands.

But the gods, they say, delight in surprises, and one day an individual happened to come down that alley who was fated to have an immense influence on Sarah Ann's career.

He was a well-known dancing-master, a first-rate one, and a respectable man whose whole life had been devoted to his art and nothing else.

He saw the group of girls dancing round the organ, stood and watched them with an absent, reflective smile, and then, suddenly, his face lit up and his eyes brightened.

Sarah Ann had run out from the green grocer's shop with an orange she had stolen, and as she tore off the peel with her white teeth, set to dancing with the rest.

The dancing-master drew aside a little, and kept his eyes on the lank, angular girl whose dark orbs glowed under the excitement of the dance, which, unlike that of her companions, was in perfect time with the "music," and full of a grace which was as natural as a young Indian's.

Monsieur Faber, he was a Frenchman, went up to her.

"Are you fond of dancing?" he asked.

"Am I! Ain't I?" she retorted, flashing her teeth upon him. "Why, of course I am! Who ain't?"

"So am I," he said. "Would you like to learn to dance properly?"

"Learn! I can dance already!" she retorted, with a toss of her head.

"Ah, you think so!" he said, smiling, with a kind of good-natured pity.

He looked round; the alley was empty, excepting for the children; and he signed to the organ man to go on playing, and as he played, the thin, dapper little Frenchman began to dance. We won't try and describe it. All the world has seen him, and knows what is meant when it is said that it was Monsieur Faber at his best.

He seemed to be made of springs, India rubber springs, to be as light as a thistle down, to tread, float, on air, and to possess the wind and speed of a dervish.

The black-eyed slip of a girl watched him in breathless amazement and delight; and when he finished and came on his toe points as if he had just floated down from the grimy house-tops, she uttered a long-drawn sigh of envy and admiration.

"I couldn't do that," she said, looking at him sullenly but wistfully.

"No, not yet," he said. "And why, my child? Because you have not been taught. One does not know how to dance till one learns. Would you like to learn?"

"Shouldn't I, just!" she responded.

"Take me to your mother, and we will see," he said.

She ran, sprang into the shop.

"Mother, here's a man as dances like—like—an angel," (she said "a hangel",) "and he's going to teach me."

The poor woman "went for her" with a stick that lay handy, but M. Faber interposed, and entered on an explanation and a proposal.

He would take Sarah Ann as a pupil, teach her to dance, get her an engagement at one of the theaters, and in return, she was to be bound to him as a kind of apprentice, and give him a certain percentage—it was a fair one—of all she might earn for the next five years.

Sarah Ann's parents hesitated, but Sarah Ann cut the negotiation short by coolly announcing her determination, in the event of their refusing, to accept the offer, to "cut and run," and, knowing that she was quite capable of carrying out her threat the couple consented.

M. Faber christened her Finetta, and commenced the lessons at once. He had two daughters of his own, but though they worked hard, neither they nor any of the other pupils were half so quick at the enchanting science as Sarah Ann—pardon! Finetta—the daughter of the small coal man.

She worked hard, almost day and night; it might be said that she danced in her dreams. She had a good ear for music; "if you only had a voice, my dear child," M. Faber would murmur, throwing up his hands, and when she danced it was like a human instrument playing, moving, in accord and harmony with the mechanical one, the violin or the piano.

She would do nothing at home in the alley; would not serve in the shop, or keep the small coal accounts, or wash her face or brush her hair; but she obeyed M. Faber with an eager alacrity which was almost pathetic.

"I want to dance better than any one in the world!" she would say, and her master encouraged her by remarking that it was not unlikely she would attain her wish.

The months passed on. The angular girl—all legs and wings, like a pullet—grew into a graceful young woman, with a face, which, if not beautiful in the regulation way, was singularly striking, with flashing eyes, and rather large but mobile lips.

"There is a great future before that girl," M. Faber would remark to his wife, a good-natured woman, who treated all the pupils as if they were her own children. But he did not hurry. "One does not learn to dance in a day," he would say, when Finetta begged him to get her an engagement, even if it were ever so small a one. "Patience, my good child; and when the time comes, voila, you shall see!"

The time came, and Finetta appeared among the ladies of the ballet at a small provincial theater. He kept her in the ranks for two years, then gave her a "solo" part, and lastly obtained an engagement for her at the Diadem.

To dance at the Diadem was the height of Finetta's ambition. Her heart beat that night as it had never beat before, not even on her first appearance at the provincial theater; but it did not deafen the music, or drive her steps out of her mind, and when she had finished, the roar of delight that rose in the theater proclaimed the fact that Finetta had scored a triumph, and that M. Faber had not labored in vain.

This was three years ago. Her popularity had steadily increased. She was now the rage. Her salary exceeded that of a cabinet minister; the percentage alone was a good income for the patient, persevering M. Faber.

When she appeared at night the house roared a welcome, and rewarded her efforts with thunders of applause.

Her photographs were placed among the other celebrities in the shop windows, next those of the Royal Family, the great poets, the eminent statesmen, and sold as well as, if not better than, the rest. Outside the theater hung a huge transparency, showing Finetta in her Spanish dancing-dress; the tobacconists sold a cigarette bearing her name.

All this ought to have turned her head. It did a little, but only a little. To tell the truth, she was a good-hearted girl, and in her prosperity did not forget those near to her. She set her father up in the wholesale coal trade, and put her mother into a nice house in Islington; sent her brother to school, and had her sister to live with her in the pretty house in St. John's Wood, and though the world said hard things of her, she was unjustly accused and calumniated.

Her manners were not those of Lady Clara Vere de Vere. She gave supper parties at which only gentlemen and ladies of the ballet were present; she talked and laughed loudly; she knew nothing, and cared less, for the proprieties; was fond of champagne, and enjoyed a cigarette; delighted in riding, and driving tandem, and did both surpassingly well; but scandal could find no chink in her armor through which to shoot its poisoned darts, and the worst the world could, with truth, call her was "Finetta, the dancer!"

The men who thronged round her called her "a good fellow!" and when a woman of her class has earned that title, depend upon it, she is not so black as the virtuous paint her.

She knew half the peerage—the male side—but she was as friendly and pleasant to a struggling young journalist as to my Lord Vinson. Men sent her letters, telling her they adored her; she lit her cigarettes with them, and told the writers, when next she saw them, not to waste ink and paper upon her, but to make up a party to take her for a drive and a dinner at Richmond.

Sometimes, very often, they sent her presents—diamond rings, bracelets, pendants, lockets, with their portraits (which she always took out), and she accepted them with a careless sang froid, which was amusing—to all but the donors. The horses she and her groom rode were a gift from a well-known turf lord. It was said that the lease of the house at John's Wood had been given to her; but that was not true.

"Why shouldn't I take 'em?" she said to her sister. "They'll only give 'em to some one else who wouldn't look half so well on them, and wouldn't know how to ride 'em."

So that she often danced at the Diadem wearing gems which made the ladies in the stalls envious, and appeared in the row riding a horse which was a better-looking and going one than even Lady Harkaway's, the famous sportswoman.

Sometimes one of the young men who paid her court, fell in love with her—genuine, honest love—and offered to make her his wife. She might have been a countess, had she chosen; but she did not choose.

"No, thank you," she said to one young peer, who implored her, with something like tears in his eyes to marry him. "What would be the use? You'd find out that you'd made a mistake before a month was out; and so should I. Then people would cut me, and I shouldn't like that. Besides, you'd want me to give up dancing and live what you call respectable, and I'm certain I shouldn't like that! No, you go and marry one of your own set, and take a box for my next benefit and bring her, and you'll be able to say: 'See what you saved me from!' You wouldn't? Oh, yes, you would! I know your sort of people too well. You won't take an answer? Well, then the truth is, I've made up my mind not to marry till I come across a man I can really care for, and I've not tumbled on any one yet, thank you."

She knew the world very well, did Finetta.

She sent them away when they got too "foolish," as she said, and wanted to marry her; dismissing them good-temperedly enough. In fact she was not a bad-tempered woman, and it was only at times that her passionate nature revealed itself. At such times, when she let out, it was a revelation indeed. It was almost as safe to brave the tigress in her den at the Zoological Gardens as to affront Finetta; and they who had done it once were satisfied with the attempt, and did not repeat it.

Now, one day, or rather one night, there came Yorke Auchester, and with him a change in the life of Finetta. They were friends at once. She amused and interested him; he liked to see her dance, liked to hear her talk in her cynical, good-tempered way; liked to drop in at the little house in St. John's Wood after the theater, at the little suppers over which she presided with a light-hearted gayety which made them extremely pleasant.

He admired her on horseback, admired her pluck, her coolness, her readiness to give and take in the game of repartee; and so it came about that of all the men, none were so often in her company as Yorke.

We are the slaves of habit. This is by no means a new saying, but it is a painfully true one.

Yorke got into the habit of dropping in at the Diadem for Finetta's great dance; got into the habit of dropping in at St. John's Wood, of driving her down to Richmond, of riding with her in the park or into the country.

And although he seldom gave her presents, never told her that she was the most beautiful, the cleverest, the best of her sex, as most of the other men did, Finetta liked him better than all the rest put together. And so the chain began to be forged.

When she went on the stage her dark eyes would scan the stalls, and if she saw his handsome, careless face and long figure there, a little smile would curve her lips, and she would dance her best.

At the little supper parties she managed, somehow or other, that he would sit beside her. If she were dull before he came, she brightened up when he made his appearance. If she had made an engagement, she would break it if Yorke asked her to ride and drive with him.

He didn't see this marked preference for some time, but the others did. Her quiet little sister who ran the house, once said:

"Fin, you're going soft on that big Lord Yorke," and the next moment had sufficient cause for being sorry that she had spoken.

But it was the truth. Finetta, who had laughed love to scorn, and broken, or cracked, so many hearts, was in a fair way to discover that she had a heart of her own.

Often when he had left her, she would sit perfectly motionless and silent, thinking hard; then she would start up with a laugh, and burst into a music-hall song. But it often ended with a sigh.

She was angry with herself, and she fought hard against the thralldom that was creeping over her; but she could no more help feeling happy when he was present, and miserable when he was absent, than she could help dancing in time, or dropping her 'H's' when she was excited.

Nothing stands still in this world; love grows or decreases. Finetta's love for Lord Yorke grew day by day, until it had reached such a pass that when he went off she needs must throw up her part for the night and follow him, and failing to find him, come back wretched at heart, though outwardly as cool and debonair as usual.

That morning as she was putting on her habit, her sister Polly had ventured to say a few more words of warning.

"That Lord Yorke will make your heart ache, Fin," she said, as she buttoned her sister's boots.

"Oh, will he?" she retorted, with a dash of color coming into her cheeks.

"Yes, he will. And what's the good? He won't ask you to marry him."

"Oh, won't he? How do you know?"

"I've heard them talk about him. He's as poor as a rat."

"But I'm not!"

"No, I dare say; but that won't help you. Besides, he's a good as engaged to that Lady Eleanor Dallas."

Finetta jerked her foot away, and her eyes began to glow dangerously.

"Her? Why she's like a wax doll."

"Oh, no, she isn't," said Polly. "She's as good-looking as most of the swells, and more so; besides, she's rolling in money, and it's money he wants. Take my advice, Fin, and don't let him hang about you any longer."

"And you take my advice, and hold your tongue!" retorted Finetta. "He shall hang about me as much as he likes. Who said I wanted to marry him, or—or that I would if he asked me?"

"I do; if he'd give you the chance," said Polly.

Finetta drew her foot away.

"I'll button the other myself," she said, passionately. But when her sister had gone she sat with the other boot unbuttoned, and kept the groom and the horses waiting for a good half-hour; and when she did go down and mount and ride off, her handsome face was clouded and thoughtful.

But at the sight of the green park and the people, she chased the melancholy brooding out of her dark eyes, and touching the magnificent horse with her golden spur, sent him into the row in her well-known style.

"If he were only here," she thought, and a sigh came to her lips. "Somehow I feel tired and bored without him, and lost if he's away for a day or two. Going to marry Lady Eleanor, is he?"

Almost before the muttered words had left her lips her eyes fell upon a stalwart figure standing against the rails, and the color flew to her face as she brought the horse up beside him.

It was Yorke—Yorke leaning against the rail, with his usually careless face grave and thoughtful, his eyes absent and staring vacantly at the ground, and yet with a strange look in them, which she, with a woman's quickness, noticed in an instant.

"Yorke," she said, bending down.

He started, and looked up, and her name came to his lips, but without the friendly smile which usually accompanied it.

"Why, when did you come back?" she asked, her face, her eyes all alight with life and happiness.

"To-day," he said. "Sultan's looking well——."

"Where have you been?" she demanded, noticing a change in his voice. "Did you get any fishing?

"Not much," he said, and his eyes were fixed on the horse.

"No? Then why didn't you come back? It's been awfully slow without you. Did you know that I had a day off and run down to the country? I was near you, I believe. Why didn't you leave word where you were going? What's the matter with you?" she broke off sharply, her color coming and going, for there had come into his face, into his eyes, a look almost of pity—newly born pity.

He knew now that he himself loved, that this woman loved him, and how she would suffer presently.

"I'll come in after the theater to-night," he said.

"Ride on now, or we shall have a crowd."

Several men had stopped, but waited, as if recognizing Yorke's right to monopolize her.

"Very well," she said, and she turned the horse. "It has come at last!" she murmured, "at last! He is going to be married. I know it! I know!" Her breath came painfully, and her hand stole up to her heart.

At that moment a lady came riding in the opposite direction. She was fair as a lily, and as beautiful, with soft brown eyes that looked dreamily about her; but as they met the dark ones of Finetta they seemed to awake, and the softness instantly vanished and gave place to an expression that in a man would be called hard and calculating.

Finetta's face, pale a moment before, grew white.

"That's her," she muttered. "And he is going to marry her. Polly's right; she's beautiful. Beautiful, and different to me. He'll marry and love her."

Her head drooped and her lips set tightly, and then she rode on. But suddenly she stopped the horse under some trees and looked back.

The beautiful girl with the soft brown eyes had stopped beside the rail, and Yorke and she were shaking hands.

Finetta could see their faces distinctly, and she watched, scanned his eagerly.

A singular expression came into her bold, handsome face.

"It's not her he's thinking of," she said; "not her. There's the same look in his eyes as when he looked up at me. What is it? I'll find out to-night." Her white teeth came together with a click. "I feel like fighting to-day. Going to marry Lady Eleanor, is he? We'll see! Oh, Yorke, if—if——." She looked round at the aristocrats riding past. "There isn't one that could love you as I do."

CHAPTER XIII.

"WHAT A MESS I'M IN!"

Lady Eleanor pulled her horse up beside the railing, as Finetta had done, and smiled down upon Yorke. She had a beautiful smile which, beginning in her brown eyes, spread over her face to her lips, the well-formed, cleanly cut lips, which more than anything else gave her countenance the patrician look for which Finetta—and others—hated her. And she did not smile too often.

"Well, Yorke," she said, and her voice was low and clear, and sweet, with just a touch of languid hauteur in it that was also aristocratic. "What a lovely day. Why aren't you riding?"

She didn't ask him, as Finetta had done, where he had been. That would have been a mistake which Lady Eleanor was far too wise to make.

"Horse is lame," he said.

"Oh, what a pity!" she exclaimed, nodding to some friends who were passing. "Just when you want him, too."

"Yes," he said, "though I am going to sell him."

She turned her eyes upon him, and raised her brown eyes with a faint surprise.

"Going to sell Peter! I thought he suited you so well."

He nodded, and laughed rather uneasily. The announcement that he intended to sell his horse had been a slip of the tongue.

"Oh, he suits me well enough, but I shall sell him all the same. What a lot of people there are here to-day."

"Aren't there!" she said, bowing and smiling to one and another of the men who saluted her. "Nearly everybody one knows. By the way, I haven't seen the duke this morning."

"Dolph's down in the country," he said.

"Oh!"

She would not have asked where, even had she not known; that would have been another mistake of which she would not have been guilty for worlds, but her "oh" gave him a chance to tell her if he chose. Apparently he did not choose, for he changed the subject.

"How did the Spelham's dance go off last night?"

"Very well," she replied. "But it was terribly crowded. The princess was there. I saved a couple of dances for you as long as I could."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I couldn't get back."

She looked quite satisfied with the explanation, or rather want of one, quite satisfied and serenely placid.

"You missed a very pleasant ball," was all she said. "I must go on now. Will you come in to luncheon? Aunt will be very pleased to see you."

"And you too?" he said, as a matter of course.

He always had a good supply of such small change about him.

She smiled.

"And I too, certainly," she said, and with a nod rode on.

Yorke looked after her thoughtfully, and gnawed his mustache.

The last two days had been the happiest in his life. He had spent them with Leslie, had walked with her through the lanes and on the beach, and had driven her to Northcliffe, and every moment of the delicious time his love had increased; it had seemed to him that he had not really loved till now, and that his past existence had been a sheer waste; and he had been happy notwithstanding that he was still deceiving her, that she still thought him the Duke of Rothbury, and that he had come to town to break off with two women who loved him.

It is well to be off with the old love before you are on with the new, even when there is only one old love; but when there are two!

It had cost him a great deal to tear himself away from Leslie, even for a few days, but he had done so. And all the way up to town he had been hard at work forming most excellent resolutions.

He would reform, and reform altogether. He would sell his horse, send in his resignation to two or three of his most expensive clubs, would give up cards and betting, especially betting. He didn't see why he shouldn't do without a man-servant. Fleming, his valet, had been a faithful fellow, and suited him down to the ground; but, yes, Fleming must go.

And then—well, then he would go to Mr. Lisle and ask for that pearl of great price, his daughter,—and marry!

His heart leaps at the thought. Marry Leslie! He pictured her as a bride, drew delightful mental sketches of the time they would have. He would take her to the Continent for their wedding-trip, and then they'd settle down in a cottage. It would have to be a cottage.

"Love in a cottage!" Great goodness, how often he had laughed at the idea, how he had pitied the poor devils who had committed matrimony and gone out of the world to live in respectable poverty with cold mutton and cheap sherry for luncheon!

But cold mutton and cheap sherry didn't seem so bad with Leslie to share them.

He would have to give up a great deal of course, and live within the small income left of his mother's dower. What a fearful lot of money he had spent! He had never thought of it before, but now he went through a little mental arithmetic, and was quite startled. Would anybody believe that gloves, button-holes, stalls at the Diadem, cigars, dinners at Richmond, could run up to such a sum?

What would he give for some of the money now? He took out the duke's check and looked at it. It was a large sum; but he owed all that and a great deal more.

Then he put dull care behind him, and gave himself up to thinking of Leslie, her beautiful face ten times more lovely than when he had first seen it, how that her love for him was shining in her eyes. What eyes they were! Eleanor's were nice ones, Finetta's were handsome ones—but Leslie's!

And her voice, too! He could hear it now calling him, half-shyly, "Yorke!"

He reached town, and went to his rooms in Bury Street, and Fleming had got his London clothes, the well-fitting frock coat and flawless hat, all ready as if he had expected him. And Yorke's heart smote him as he thought that he would have to give that faithful servant notice.

Then he went out, still thinking of Leslie and the dark gray eyes which had grown moist and tender as she said "Good-by!" and then had come Finetta and Lady Eleanor!

Yes, he had got his work cut out for him! But he would do it! He would devote his life to the dear, sweet girl down at Portmaris, whose pure, unstained heart he had won; he would reform, cut London, and go and be happy in a cottage for the rest of his life.

Meanwhile he had promised to lunch with Lady Eleanor, the woman whom the duke and the world at large had decided that he was going to marry; and he had promised to sup with Finetta, who doubtless thought that he should marry her.

He had made love to both these women. It was so easy for him, with his handsome face and light-hearted smile. He had only been half in earnest! if so much had meant—well, what had he meant—by soft speeches just murmured, by tender glances, by eloquent pressures of the hand? But they? How had they taken this easy love-making of his? He knew too well.

"Oh, lord, what a mess I'm in!" he muttered, as he made his way slowly toward Lady Eleanor's house in Palace Gardens.

Lady Eleanor rode home rather quickly, and as she entered the morning-room in which her aunt, Lady Denby, was sitting, there was a brightness in her soft eyes and a color in her cheeks which caused the elder lady to regard her curiously.

"Yorke is coming to luncheon," she said, and Lady Denby at once knew the cause of her niece's vivacity. "I wonder whether they can send up some lobster cutlets; he is so fond of them, you know. At any rate, will you see that they put on the claret he likes, the '73 it is, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, we will serve up the fatted calf," said Lady Denby, with a smile. "So his gracious majesty has come back?"

"Yes," said Lady Eleanor, moving about the room restlessly, and flicking her habit-skirt with her whip. "Yes, and he looks very well, but——."

"But what?"

"Well, I scarcely know how to put it. He seemed grave and more serious than usual this morning. It isn't often Yorke is serious, you know."

"He has been up to something more reckless and desperate than usual, perhaps," suggested Lady Denby.

"Perhaps," assented Lady Eleanor, coolly.

"You say that with delicious sang froid," remarked Lady Denby. "I suppose if he had been committing murder or treason it would make no difference to you."

"Not one atom," said the girl, her color deepening.

"The only crime that would ruin him in your eyes would be matrimony with some one other than yourself."

Lady Eleanor started, and bit her lip, then she forced a laugh.

"I don't know whether even that would cure me," she said. "I should hate his wife, hate her with an active hatred which would embitter all my days; but I would go on caring for him and hoping that his wife might die, and that I might marry him after all."

Lady Denby shrugged her shoulders, and looked at the proud face, with its tightly drawn lips, and now brooding eyes.

"Yours is about the worst case I think I have ever met with, Eleanor," she said.

"Oh, no, it isn't," responded Lady Eleanor. "Only I'm not ashamed to admit how it is with me, and other women are. But you needn't be afraid on my account. I only wear my heart on my sleeve for you to peck at. I keep my secret from the rest of the world."

"Or think you do," said Lady Denby. "And how is it going to end?"

"God knows!" exclaimed Lady Eleanor, with an infinite and pathetic wistfulness. "Sometimes I wish I were dead, or he were——."

"What?"

"Yes! I'd rather see him dead than the husband of another woman!"

"My dear Nell!"

"You are shocked. Well, you must be so. It's the truth. Sometimes I wake in the night from a dream that he has married, and that I am standing by and see him put the ring on, and I feel——," she stopped, and laughed with a mixture of bitterness and self-scorn. "What weak, miserable fools we women are! There is not a man in the whole world worth one hundredth part of the suffering we undergo."

"Certainly Yorke Auchester does not!"

Lady Eleanor swung round on her with a kind of subdued fierceness.

"What have you to say against him? I thought he was a favorite of yours!"

"So he is; but I'm not blind to his faults——."

"His faults! What are they?"

"He is selfish, for one thing——."

"Selfish. He would give away his last penny——."

"I dare say; he hates coppers——."

"Would go to the end of the earth to save a friend. Is truth itself. And where is there a braver man than Yorke Auchester?"

Her voice softened and faltered as she spoke his name.

"Or a more foolish and infatuated girl than Eleanor Dallas," said her aunt. "There!" and she stroked the golden head which Eleanor had let fall on her hands; "you can't help it, I suppose, and we must make the best of it. I'll see that he has what he likes for luncheon. Thank Heaven, if we know nothing more about men, we know the nearest way to their hearts."

Lady Eleanor put out her hand to stop her aunt for a moment.

"I—I saw that woman this morning," she said, in a low voice.

"You mean Finetta?"

"Yes, she had come into the park to meet him, I believe, I saw them talking together. She is a beautiful woman—very."

"She is that."

"I don't wonder at his being—fond of her and liking to be with her."

"I hear they are seldom apart," said Lady Denby, gravely. "That ought to cure you, if anything would, Eleanor."

Lady Eleanor shook her head.

"It only makes it worse," she said, with her face hidden. "Jealousy doesn't kill love——."

"But wounded pride should do so!"

"No, no! It's true I'm proud enough to the rest of the world, but it all goes, slips away from me when—when I am near him! Oh, dear! Why, this morning when I saw him my heart——! And he looked up at me as if he had seen me only an hour or two ago! But there, what is the use of talking! I hope they will have some of these cutlets!"

Lady Denby shrugged her shoulders, and shook her head.

"It's a pity that Yorke does not know what is good for him. He could have lobster cutlets and '73 claret for the rest of his life, and all manner of good things, if he would only throw his handkerchief in the right direction."

Lady Eleanor smiled up at her almost defiantly.

"It is of no use your taunting me," she said. "You are right; if he threw his handkerchief, as you put it, I should be only too glad to go on my knees to pick it up."

A servant came to the door, with a card on a salver.

Lady Denby took it, and glanced at it.

"It is Mr. Ralph Duncombe," she said.

"I cannot see him this morning. Say that I am not at home."

Lady Denby signed to the footman to wait.

"Ought you not to see him?" she said in a low voice. "It may be important business."

"Oh, very well. Show Mr. Duncombe into the library."

"That's right," said Lady Denby, approvingly, "You can't afford to offend such a man as this Mr. Duncombe. There are not too many men who are willing to work for you for nothing. I suppose he has come about those mines?"

"I suppose so," assented Lady Eleanor, bitterly.

"I will go and see."

Ralph Duncombe had been a friend of Lady Eleanor's father. The late earl had been fond of dabbling in the city and had met the successful young merchant there and found him extremely useful. It had been chiefly owing to Ralph Duncombe's advice and counsel that the late earl had made the fifty thousand pounds which he had left to Lady Eleanor. He had done nothing for some years before his death without consulting the keen man of business, and Lady Eleanor had followed her father's example.

She would not have been a particularly rich woman with fifty thousand at three per cent., but Ralph Duncombe had invested it for her in such a way that it had brought in sometimes ten and fifteen. He had bought shares and sold them again at a big profit; had dealt with her money as if it had been his own, and had been as lucky with it. The greatest and latest piece of good fortune had only just turned up. He had purchased some land on the coast, calculating to dispose of it to a building company, but while negotiating with them discovered traces of copper; and it was on the cards that he had by one of those flukes which seemed to come so often to Ralph Duncombe, found a large fortune for her.

"How do you do, Mr. Duncombe?" she said. "What a shame that you should have to come all this way from the city."

"It does not take long by the Underground," he said, in his grave voice, as he shook hands; "and I have some important news for you."

"Yes," she said, and she motioned him to a chair.

As he sat down she noticed that he looked graver than usual, and that there was a tired and rather sad expression in his eyes.

"Is it bad news?" she said.

"Bad?" He looked at her with faint surprise.

"I thought you looked graver than usual, and rather disappointed," she explained.

He flushed slightly and forced a smile.

"We business men seldom look elated," he said, with something like a sigh. "Money making is not an exhilarating pursuit, Lady Eleanor."

"I should have thought otherwise," she said; "but I don't know much about it. I only know that it is very kind of you to take so much trouble over my affairs."

"Not at all. It comes natural to me," he said, with a slight smile. "I was your father's adviser—if I may put it so—for so long and so intimately that it seems a matter of course that I should continue to be his daughter's. But about this copper, Lady Eleanor. We were not mistaken; the indications are particularly distinct, and there is every reason to believe that the land contains a vast quantity."

"Yes," she said; "that is good news. I suppose it will make me very rich?"

He nodded.

"Yes, immensely so. The thing to decide now is how to work it. I have a plan which I should like you to consider," and he went on to explain it to her.

She listened not very attentively.

"I leave it all to you," she said, when he had finished. "I suppose you will think that is very cool of me; but I don't know what else I could do. That is, if you will undertake the business for me."

He nodded.

"I will do so, and not altogether disinterestedly, for I shall ask your permission to take some shares in the company."

"Why, yes, of course," she said at once. "I consider that it belongs as much to you as to me; you found it."

He shook his head, with a smile.

"Scarcely that," he said; "but I shall have an interest in it. We shall get to work at once, and I think I may say, positively, that you will be, as you put it, very rich, before many months are out."

"Very rich," she murmured; "thank you."

It was rather a strange way of accepting the information, but she was thinking of how little use the money would be if a certain person refused to share it with her.

Ralph Duncombe glanced at his watch and got up.

"You will stay to lunch?" she said....

"Thank you, Lady Eleanor, not this morning.

"I have to attend a board meeting, and shall be late as it is."

"I am sorry."

She gave him her hand, and as he held it she said, as if at a sudden thought:

"Did you—did you get those bills I asked you about?"

"Lord Auchester's?" he said, and he noticed that her hand quivered. "Yes, I bought them up." He looked at her gravely. "It cost rather a larger sum than I expected."

"You mean that he was very much in debt?" she said, in a low voice, and with downcast eyes.

"Yes, very much," he replied, laconically.

She bit her lip softly, and still evaded his keen gaze.

"Tell me," she said. "You know I do not understand such matters; but—but, supposing that you were to compel him to pay these bills, what would be the result?"

"You mean try to compel him?" he said, with a smile. "You cannot get water from a dry well, Lady Eleanor, and from what I hear, Lord Auchester is a very dry well. If you forced him to take up those bills, you would ruin him."

"Ruin him!"

"Yes. That means that you would make a kind of outcast of him. A man who cannot meet his engagements is dishonored; he would have to give up his clubs and leave London. I don't know where such men go now; to some corner of Spain, I believe. Any way, he would be ruined and thoroughly finished."

She drew a long breath.

"And I—and I could do that?" she said, in a very low voice.

"You could do that, as I hold the bills for you, certainly," he replied.

"Thank you," she said, with a laugh that sounded forced and unnatural; "I only wanted to know. I'm afraid you must think me sublimely ignorant."

"Not more so than a lady should be of business matters," he replied, politely.

There was a moment's pause. He took up his hat and gloves. Then, suddenly, Lady Eleanor said:

"Do you know a place called Portmaris, Mr. Duncombe?"

CHAPTER XIV.

"NOW, YORKE!"

The carefully brushed, exquisitely shining, and glossy hat—the city man's god, as it has been called—fell from his hands, and he flushed and then turned pale; but that, perhaps, was at his clumsiness. At any rate, whatever the cause, he was able to look Lady Eleanor steadily in the face when he recovered his hat.

"Portmaris?" he said, smoothing it with his sleeve. "Yes, I know it. It is a small fishing village on the west coast. Why do you ask?" and his keen eyes grew to her face.

"Oh, I only heard of it the other day," she said.

"A friend of mine, the Duke of Rothbury, has gone down there, and——," she paused a moment—"and Lord Auchester has been there."

"Lord Auchester?" he said, and his brows knit thoughtfully. "It is a strange place for a man about town, like Lord Auchester, to stay at."

"He has been fishing."

"There is no fishing there," he remarked, and he put one glove on, and took it off again, the frown still on his face.

"He has been to see the duke. You may know that the duke and he are great friends. They are cousins."

He shook his head, with an impatience strange and unusual with him—the cool, self-possessed, city man.

"I know very little about such persons, Lady Eleanor," he said, gravely. "Your father, the late earl, was the only nobleman I ever knew, and—I don't mean to be offensive—I ever wanted to know."

Lady Eleanor looked at him with faint, well-bred surprise; then she smiled.

"If reports speak truly, you are likely to be a nobleman yourself some day, Mr. Duncombe. You have only to enter Parliament——."

He shook his head by way of stopping her.

"I have no ambition in that direction, Lady Eleanor," he said, almost gloomily. "I am a man of business, and care nothing for titles. I was going to say and for little else; but I suppose that wouldn't be true. I do care for money; I've been bred to that. Is there anything else you would like to say to me?" he broke off abruptly.

His manner was so singular, so unlike his usual one, that Lady Eleanor was startled.

"Thank you, no," she said; "except—except that I should be glad if you could get any other bills or debts of Lord Auchester's."

He nodded.

"Certainly." He brushed his hat slowly, then added, "Excuse me, Lady Eleanor, but will you allow me to ask why you are purchasing—and at a heavy price—Lord Auchester's liabilities? I am aware that I have no right to ask you the question——."

"Yes, you have," she said, quickly, and struggling with the color that would mount to her face. "You were my father's friend, and have been and are mine; and you have every right to ask such questions. But I find it difficult to answer. Well, Lord Auchester is a friend of mine, and I would rather that he owed me the money than a lot of Jews and people of that kind."

Ralph Duncombe inclined his head with an air of, "You know your own business better than any one else."

"Good-morning, Lady Eleanor," he said; "I will do as you wish. And please, say nothing about this mining scheme of ours."

He got outside the house, and drew a long breath.

The mere mention of the word "Portmaris" had stirred his heart to its depths, and recalled Leslie and his parting scene with her.

He might aspire to nobility, might he? What would be the good of a title to him, when the only title he longed for was that of Leslie Lisle's husband? And so this Lord Auchester had been at Portmaris. Had he seen Leslie? Had he spoken to her? It was not unlikely! Such men as this Lord Yorke Auchester would be sure to discover a beautiful girl like Leslie, and make acquaintance with her.

Ralph Duncombe spent a very bad half-hour on the Underground on his way back to the city; very bad!

Five minutes after the man of business had left Palace Gardens, Yorke, the man of pleasure, arrived there, and was welcomed as if he were the great Lama of Thibet.

"I haven't had time to change my habit, Yorke," said Lady Eleanor.

"You couldn't put on anything prettier," he said, with that fatal facility of his, and he looked at her admiringly.

Lady Eleanor never appeared to greater advantage than in the dark green habit, upon which Redfern had bestowed his most finished art.

"Come in to luncheon at once," she said; "it is the only way of stopping your compliments. Here is Aunt Denby in a complete quandary as to whether there is anything fit to eat. You know we women don't care what we get, but it is different with you men."

But the luncheon was perfect in its way. Clear soup, a fish pie, salmi of fowl, and—oh, wonderful cook! lobster cutlets; and the famous '73 claret.

Yorke did full justice to the good fare, and rattled away for the amusement of the two women. He talked of the opera, of the next meeting at Sandown, of anything and everything which would interest two women moving in the ultra-fashionable circles, and made himself so pleasant that Lady Denby—who always suspected, while she liked him—relaxed into a smile, and Lady Eleanor was beaming.

"Never get cutlets like these anywhere else," he said, helping himself to a second serve with a contented sigh.

"Not at Portmaris?" asked Lady Eleanor.

He held his fork aloft, and looked at her with sudden gravity.

"Eh! Oh, Portmaris. No. No lobster cutlets down there. I rather think they eat the lobsters raw."

"What an outlandish place it must be!" said Lady Eleanor. "I wonder how you could stay there, you and Dolph."

"Oh, anything for a change," he said, carelessly, but with his mind apparently fixed on his plate, at the bottom of which he could see Leslie's face as plainly as if she were standing before him.

The lunch was over at last. It had seemed interminable to Lady Eleanor, and Lady Denby had, with a half-audible murmur of an afternoon drive, taken herself away and left the coast clear.

"You want to smoke?" said Lady Eleanor. "Come into the conservatory. Aunt doesn't mind it there, as it kills the insects."

He lit a cigar, and lounged against the doorway, and she sank into a seat and absently picked the blossoms nearest to her.

"Now is the time," he thought, "to tell her everything," but at the moment he remembered the bracelet which the duke had given him for her, and he put his hand in his pocket and drew it out.

"By the way, Eleanor," he said, carelessly, "you had a birthday the other day."

"Yes, I think I had," she said, smiling up at him. "Do you remember it?"

"Well, I shouldn't, if it hadn't been for Dolph," he said, honestly. "Dolph always remembers, you know."

"Yes, I know."

"And so—so——." He took the morocco case from his pocket and opened it. "And so—well, I know it isn't worth your acceptance, but if you care to take it, here's a trifle—Dolph gave me," he added, honestly and he held out the bracelet.

She took it, and her face brightened, brightened with a soft glow which made it look inexpressibly tender and grateful.

"How good of you! How pretty it is! And it is just the size, see," and she unbuttoned the habit sleeve and slipped the bracelet on. "How does it fasten?"

"Eh?" he said. "Oh, like this, I expect," and he closed the spring and fastened it over her slender, milk-white wrist, and the touch of his hand sent a thrill through her, though he performed the operation in a most business-like way.

"How very good of you!"

"Say, rather of Dolph," he said. "It was he who gave it to me for you."

"But it was you who gave it to me," she said, in a low voice.

"I told him you wouldn't care for it," he said. "You who have no end of presents."

"But none I value more than this," she said, her voice singing, so to speak. "I will always wear it."

"Don't," he said. "Better wear the bracelet that goes with your diamond set. That's more suitable to a rich person than this—though that's hard on Dolph, who chose it and paid for it, isn't it?"

She was silent a moment, then she said:

"That reminds me, Yorke. Do you know that I am likely to be richer even than you think?"

"Oh? Well, I'm very glad," he said, with friendly interest and pleasure. "What will you do with so much coin; roll in it?"

She sighed softly, and lifted her eyes to his for a moment, with a look that said, "I would like to give it to you, and you can roll in it, or fling it in the Thames, or play ducks and drakes with it, or anything." But he was not looking at her, and did not see the appeal of the soft brown eyes.

"There is one thing I can do with it," she said. "I can buy your horse, if you really mean selling it, Yorke. But you don't?"

"But I do," he said, quickly, and with a touch of red showing through his tan. "I'm going to cut down my establishment—big word 'establishment,' isn't it?—as low as it can be cut, and the horse has got to go."

"Then I will buy it," she said, her face flushing, and then going pale.

Why was he selling it? What was he going to do? Surely nothing rash; he was not going to marry. No! she drew a long breath—that was impossible. He couldn't marry with those debts hanging round his neck, and those awful bills which she held, unless he married an heiress, and in that case he would not want to sell his horse, an old and loving favorite.

"You?" he said. "Why should you buy it? You've got enough already. Besides, he's not altogether safe."

"Thank you," she said, laughing a little tremulously. "It is the first time my horsemanship has been called in question. I'm not afraid of Peter. Besides, I—I should like to have him."

"To put under a glass case?"

"Yes, that I might look at him and recall the many jolly rides we have had together. No, no one shall have Peter but me. You can't prevent my buying him, you know!"

"No," he said. "And I'd rather you had him than any one else. I should see him occasionally, and I think I could make him quiet enough for you. Perhaps," he laughed, "you might feel good-natured enough sometimes to lend him to a poor chap who can't afford a nag of his own."

"Yes," she said. "I could do that. Is there anything I wouldn't lend or give you, Yorke?" and her voice was almost inaudible.

He started and looked at his watch. How was he to tell this beautiful woman, whose eyes were melting with love, whose voice rang with it, that he had no love to return, that he had indeed given his whole heart to another woman? And yet, that was what he meant doing this morning!

"I—I must be off," he said, almost nervously.

She rose, and as she did so the bracelet, which he must have fastened insecurely, fell to the ground. He stooped and picked it up, and she held out her arm.

"That's a bad omen, isn't it?" she said, with a wistful smile.

"Oh, no," he replied, as lightly as he could. "That kind of thing only applies to rings; wedding ones in particular. Let's see, how does this clasp go, once more?"

She put her disengaged hand to show him, and their fingers met, touched and got entangled, and he laughed; but the laugh died away as he saw her lips quiver as if with pain, and her soft eyes fill with tears.

He got outside and took off his hat, and drew a long breath.

"I could as soon have struck her as told her," he muttered.

And that was how he was 'off with the old love' No. 1.

He went down to the club, and sauntered from reading-room to reception-room, and at last consented to play a game at billiards with a man with whom he had often played, and always at an advantage.

Yorke was good at most games of strength or skill, and the men, hearing that he was playing, dropped in and sat round to while away the tedious hour before dinner.

But that afternoon Yorke could not play a bit.

"Completely off color," remarked a young fellow, in tones of almost personal resentment. "Never saw such a thing, don't-yer-know. There! That's the second easy hazard he's missed, and bang goes my sovereign."

"And why on earth does he keep on smoking like that?" inquired another in an undertone. "Looks as if he were mooning about something. He can't be—be——."

The first young fellow shook his head.

"No, Yorke Auchester doesn't drink, if that's what you mean; it isn't that, but hang me if I know what it is. Yorke!" he called out, "you can't play."

Yorke gave a little start in the middle of one of the reflective smiles.

"Eh? No. I'm making a fool of myself, I know."

"You must have been to bed early wherever you've been for the last week," suggested one of the men, and they were all surprised to see him flush, "like a great girl, by Jingo!"

"Yes, I have, and it hasn't agreed with me in a billiard sense," he said, good temperedly, as he put on his coat and sauntered out. He went to his chambers and dressed, and the faithful Fleming also noticed the singular fit of abstraction which had fallen upon his beloved master.

"Seems to have something on his mind," was his mental reflection. "And it doesn't look as if it was bills or anything unpleasant of that kind."

"Shall I wait up to-night, my lord?" he asked, as he put on the perfectly cut dress overcoat, and handed the speckless, flawless hat.

He had to put the question twice, and even then Yorke did not seem to catch the sense of it immediately.

"Eh? No, don't sit up; I may be late. And, by the way, I may be off to the country to-morrow morning, so have some things packed."

"Something up at that outlandish place he's been staying at," was Fleming's mental comment, and he watched his master go slowly down the stairs with the faint flicker of a smile on his handsome face.

Yorke dined at the club and for once seemed quite indifferent as to what he ate, and when the footman brought the wrong claret, took it without a word of reproach. Some of his friends watched him from an adjacent table, and shook their heads.

"Somebody's gone and died and left him a hatful of coin, or else he's won a big wager. Never saw Yorke Auchester go dreaming over his dinner in his life before," was the remark.

About nine o'clock he lit a cigar, and walked down to the Diadem.

The attendants, box-keepers, even the men in the orchestra knew him, and people pointed him out to each other as his stalwart figure made its way to his stall; and when Finetta sprang onto the stage in her dainty page's dress of scarlet and black satin, the man who always "knows everything" about the actors and actresses whispered to a country cousin, "That's Finetta. Look! You'll see her glance toward him and perhaps give a little nod. They say he's spent every penny of an enormous fortune in diamonds for her; got some of 'em on to-night," etc.

As a matter of fact, Finetta saw him without any direct glance, and saw nothing else.

It was said that she danced her best that night, and the house stamped and cheered with delight.

But as Yorke looked at her, and clapped, he thought:

"Poor Fin. It won't be hard to leave her."

And the remembrance of the laugh he had heard at St. Martin's Tower rose, and made him shudder. He lit a cigar after the theater, and set out to walk to St. John's Wood.

As the page opened the door—Finetta had two men-servants, both as well appointed and trained as any of Lady Eleanor's—Yorke heard the sound of laughter and music in the dining-room; and above it all, Finetta's laugh; it made him shudder once more.

Supper was nearly over—a dainty supper with ice puddings and the best brands of champagne and some one at the piano was dashing out with the true artistic touch, the popular song from the late comic opera, and some of the guests were singing it.

There were three or four men—Lord Vinson was among them and—and as many ladies. At the head of the table sat Finetta. She was magnificently dressed in a cream silk, soft and undulating.

A crimson rose was her only ornament, and that worn in the thick, glossy hair; she knew Yorke's taste too well to smother herself in diamonds, and she knew also that the soft cream and the rich red rose showed up her dark, Spanish complexion as no other colors could do.

Her eyes lit up as he entered, and she signed to him to take a chair next her.

"I knew you'd come," she said, in a low voice. "You never break a promise. Polly, give Lord Auchester some gelatine—or what will you have?"

He took a biscuit and a glass of wine, and joined in with the talk.

It was not very witty, but it was not dull. The men talked of the theater, the turf, and talked a great deal better and more fluently than they did at "respectable" dinner parties, and every now and then one of them was asked to sing, and did so cheerfully and willingly, and as a rule sang well, and the rest made a chorus if it was needed.

With the exception that no one looked or was bored, and all tried to make themselves pleasant and agreeable, it differed very little from the dinners and suppers which we, the most respectable of readers, so often yawn over.

Finetta said but little, sang one song only, and was so silent and quiet and subdued, that Lord Vinson, as he rose to take his leave, whispered to Yorke on passing:

"Look out for squalls, old fellow! She's most dangerous when she's like this, don't you know."

When they had all gone but Yorke, and Polly had retired to a corner of the inner room, and taken out some lace of her sister's to mend, Finetta lit a cigarette for Yorke, and then, going to the piano, began to play—she had learned to play a little—the air to which she danced her great dance. Then she moved way and as if she were thinking of anything but the silent young man with the far-away look on his face, and humming the air musically enough, glided into the dance itself.

Surely since Taglioni there has been no more graceful dancer than Finetta, and even Yorke, with his heart soaring miles away to the flower-faced girl who owned it, could not but look and admire.

"Bravo, Fin," he said, almost involuntarily. "No wonder they encore that every night! Don't leave off," for she had stopped suddenly right in front of him, her dark eyes flashing into his, her lips apart.

"Yes," she said. "I am not going to dance any more to-night. I am going to sit here and listen while you tell me everything! Now Yorke!"

CHAPTER XV.

FINETTA LEARNS THE TRUTH.

"Now tell me everything," repeated Finetta, and she drew an amber satin cushion from the sofa, and seated herself at his feet, her hands clasped round her knees, her dark eyes turned up to him.

Now here was the way ready made for him; but what man ever answered such an appeal at once and fully? Yorke took the cigarette from his lips and looked down at her with a troubled surprise.

"What do you mean?" he said. "How do you know there is anything to tell?"

She laughed, almost contemptuously.

"How do you know when it's going to rain? By the clouds, don't you? Do you think I'm blind, Yorke? I'm not clever like some of your swell friends, but I'm not a fool. I've got eyes like other women, and perhaps they're sharper than some, and I can see something is the matter. I saw it the moment I rode up to you in the park to-day, and I've been watching you all the evening."

"You'd make a decent detective, Fin," he said, trying to speak banteringly.

"I dare say," she assented. "Most women would, especially if they knew the man they were after as well as I know you."

"Yes, we are old friends, Fin," he said.

"That's it," she said. "And that's why I ask you what's the matter, what's happened? Some men would push me off or give me the lie, but you aren't like that sort."

"Thanks," and he laughed.

"No, you always go straight, and that's one of the reasons why—I like you, don't you see?"

"I see," he said. "And so you thought I looked this morning as if I'd got something on my mind?"

She nodded.

"Yes, when I came up you were leaning against the rail, looking at nothing, as if you were dreaming; and while you were speaking to Lady Eleanor——."

He moved slightly.

"You don't like me to speak of her?" she said, with a woman's quickness. "All right, I sha'n't hurt her by mentioning her name."

"Don't be foolish, Fin," he said, coloring at the truth of her insight; he did not like to hear her mention Lady Eleanor's name.

"Oh, I'm not foolish. I was saying that you looked at her ladyship just as you looked at me, as if you didn't see either of us, as if you were looking right away beyond us, and it's been the same to-night. You haven't heard half that was going on, but have just been mooning and dreaming, and so I ask you what it is? Wait a minute. If you're going to tell me that it's money matters, you needn't, for I shouldn't believe you. If the bailiffs were in the house you wouldn't let it trouble you, you know."

He laughed.

"I am afraid I shouldn't," he admitted.

"Very well," she said, "then it isn't that—though you are hard up, and pretty deep in debt, eh, Yorke?"

"Of course," he said. "Always have been, and shall be; everybody knows that."

"And so you're used to it, and don't mind it," she went on. "It isn't that then. What is it?"

He was silent, struggling hard for courage to tell her.

"You don't like making a clean breast of it," she said, slowly. "And you think it's like my cheek to ask you. But I'm an old friend, am I not? I'm only Finetta, the girl that dances at the Diadem, but I've got a feeling that I'm a better friend to you than many of your swell ones. I dare say they think I'm a bad lot, and that I've done you no end of harm. Perhaps I have. I've let you come here when you liked, and take me about riding and driving, when you ought to have been with them; but I don't know, after all, that I've hurt you much. I dare say I could if I liked. You'd have given me things like Charlie Farquhar, if I'd let you; but I didn't. I was a fool, perhaps, sometimes I think I am. But—but, you see, I liked you. I didn't care for the others, they were nothing to me and it wouldn't have mattered if they'd spent their last shilling in rings and flowers and things. But with you it was different. I don't know quite why," and her eyes sank thoughtfully. "Perhaps it was because you always treated me like a lady, and didn't bother me to run off with you or—or marry you."

Her voice softened, and a dash of color came into her olive cheeks.

"You'd have made a poor bargain if I had and you consented, Fin," he said, gravely.

"I dare say," she assented. "Anyhow, you didn't and don't mean to. Don't deny it. I know how you've always thought of me. I've been just Finetta, of the Diadem, and it's been pleasant and amusing to take me about and come and have supper, and—and that's all."

She raised her eyes to his face with a smile, a brave smile that did not hide her aching heart from him.

"And we've been such very good friends," she went on after a pause, "that I speak out straight and plain when I see that something is the matter, and I ask you what it is, and if you take my advice, you'll tell me. Who knows, I might be able to help you, if you want any help. Don't laugh. What's that story about the lion and the mouse? I'm only a mouse I know, and you are no end of a lion, but you may find yourself in a net some day, don't you know."

Her tone was slangy, but there was an earnestness in it, and in her dark eyes, which touched Yorke.

He was silent for a moment or two, then he said in a voice inaudible to Polly, who stolidly stitched and stitched in the inner room:

"You are right, Fin. Something has happened——."

"I knew it," she said, quietly.

He screwed his courage up.

"The fact is, Fin, I am—going to be married," he said, almost in a whisper.

She did not start, did not move a muscle for a moment, then she got up.

"Wait a minute, I want a cigarette."

She crossed the room to an inlaid cabinet, and took out a silver box—of course a present—and got a cigarette from it, and her hand shook so that for a moment she could not hold the match straight.

But when she glided back to her place at his feet her hand was steady, and seeing that his face was rather pale, she showed no sign of emotion, either of surprise, or anger, or resentment.

"Going to be married?" she said, leaning back. "To Lady Eleanor, I suppose?"

"No," said Yorke, emphatically. "Why should you think that?"

He was relieved, greatly relieved by the quiet way in which she had taken the announcement, and, man like, was completely deceived.

"Oh, I don't know. Everybody said you were going to marry her. She has plenty of money and is a swell. So, it's not her?" she said, slowly, her eyes downcast.

"No, it is not," he responded. "And there's no reason why people should say——." He stopped, conscience-smitten.

"Oh, they say it because you and she are so much together, and you've made love to her; but that means nothing with you, does it?" she said, shooting a glance up at him.

Yorke colored.

"If a man's to marry every girl he flirts with——," he said, half-angrily.

"All right, I don't mind. You've flirted with me and I haven't asked you to marry me. And so it's not her ladyship." A faint smile curved her lips, which looked drawn and constrained. "What other swell is it? I know 'em all—by sight."

"She is not a 'swell' at all," he said. "And you do not know her. I only saw her the other day down in the country."

"Where you have been this last week?" she said, in a low voice, perfectly steady and under control.

"Yes, I saw her, met her, by chance, quite by chance."

"And—and you fell in love with her right off?" she said.

"Yes," he said, looking straight before him and speaking as if in a dream. "I loved her at first sight."

"She must be very good-looking."

He smiled, absently. "Good-looking" was so poor a phrase by which to describe his Leslie.

"Yes, she is good-looking, as you call it, Fin," he said.

"What is she like? Is she tall and fair—I suppose so, that's the style that fetches most men."

"N-o," he said. "She is not fair—not what one would call fair."

"Dark?" and she flashed her brilliant eyes up at him, and then at a mirror opposite her.

"N-o, not dark, I think; I can't tell. Her hair is dark."

"As mine?" she asked.

He looked down at her as if he had forgotten the color of her hair, and she felt the look like a dagger stab.

"Yes, but she has blue or gray eyes."

She nodded.

"I knew," she said, shortly, as if it cost her something to speak. "I know the sort of girl. I've seen 'em. Dark hair and bluish-gray eyes. Yes! And you fell in love with her at first sight. And—why don't you go on? I want to know all about her," and she laughed.

In his abstraction he did not detect the tone of agony, of jealousy, in the laugh, and only thought how well Finetta was behaving, and what a brick she was.

"There's not much more to tell," he said. "I—I told her that I loved her, and—and——." He paused, recalling the tender, the precious confession of his darling. "Well, we're to be married, Fin, as soon as we can. I'm as poor as a church mouse, and we sha'n't have much to live upon; but I dare say we shall get on somehow or other. Anyhow, I've made up my mind, and——." He stopped.

"No one, not the devil himself, could stop you," she finished, not passionately, but in a slow, steady voice. "And so you've come to me and told me like—like a man, Yorke."

"We are old friends, Fin," he said, "and I felt you ought to know."

"I see," she said. "It will make a difference to us, won't it? Good-by to our acquaintance now. No more dinners at Richmond, or suppers at the little house in St. John's Wood. It wouldn't do for a man who is going to be married to be friends with Finetta, eh? Oh, I understand, and I'm much obliged to you——."

"Fin——."

"Wait. I'm speaking the truth. I am much obliged to you. Some men would have kept it to themselves; would have cut me straight away without a word, and left me to find out the reason by reading the accounts of the wedding in the newspapers. But you aren't that sort, are you, Yorke—or I suppose I ought to say Lord Auchester now?"

He colored and bit his lip.

"Hit away, Fin," he said. "I deserve it."

"No," she said. "I won't hit you, though I dare say Lady Eleanor and the heaps of other ladies you've made love to will, and pretty hard. But I am not a lady, you see, and that makes a difference. And this—this young lady? You say she's not a swell?"

He laughed.

"Not what you call a swell, Fin," he said. "She is the daughter of an artist, and not a first-rate one at that."

"An artist?" The full lips writhed into an expression of amazement and contempt which he did not see. "An artist, one of those fellows who paint pictures."

"And awfully bad ones," said Yorke, with a rueful laugh.

"And they're poor?"

"They are certainly not rich," he said.

"And you'll be poor, too, you and she, when—when you're married?"

He laughed rather ruefully again.

"I know the sort of thing," she said, with all the scorn of one who has passed from squalid poverty to luxury and wealth. "You'll have to live in a small house with one or two servants, you won't be able to afford a valet or a horse——."

"Excepting a clothes-horse."

"Well, you'll want that, as I dare say she—your wife—will have to do the washing, and you'll have to dine like a workman, in the middle of the day, and drink cheap ale, and wear shabby clothes. I should like to see you in seedy clothes, Yorke; you'd look funny," and she laughed bitterly. "And she'd wear cheap things, turned dresses, and that sort of thing, and she'd get dowdy and ill-tempered, and you'd ask yourself what on earth you ever saw in her that you should go and ruin yourself by marrying her. Oh, I know!" and she leaned back and puffed at her cigarette with a contempt that was almost imperial.

Yorke colored.

"A good deal of what you say is true, but not all, Fin," he said, almost gently. It would be base ingratitude to be angry with her after the admirable way in which she had received the news. "For one thing, Leslie would never be dowdy. You'd understand that if you knew her, had seen her. I suppose she wears cheap clothes, now. If so, all I can say is that she looks as well, as refined and lady-like, as—as anybody I know."

"As Lady Eleanor?" she put in, with a flash of her dark eyes.

"Well, yes," he assented; "and for another thing, she wouldn't get ill-tempered; it isn't possible."

"Oh, isn't it?" with another curl of the lip.

"No," he said, quietly, earnestly; "I'll go bail for that much. And I'll stake my life I shall never ask myself why I married her! But you're right about a great deal of it, Fin; and we shall have to put up with it. After all, you know, you can't have everything you want in this world. Did you ever notice that the rich people, the people with hatfuls of money, generally look the most wretched? I have. They want something they haven't got, you may depend upon it; something they value ever so much higher than their coin. Well, we shall want money, but we shall have a good many other things——."

She laughed, a dry, harsh laugh.

"Don't mind me," she said; "I can't help smiling. It's as good as a play to hear you talking like the leading juvenile in a sentimental piece. Love, love, love! That's what you're thinking of. Well, perhaps you're right. God knows! I dare say you're right."

She was silent a moment, then she said:

"And when's the wedding to be?"

"Soon," he said, dreamily; "as soon as possible. It's a secret. I mean our engagement."

She looked up sharply.

"Oh, it isn't in the papers or known yet?"

He shook his head.

"No, no. We've reasons for keeping it quiet for a little while."

"But you came and told me," she said, broodingly. "Well, it was straight and kind of you, as I said, and—and I'm much obliged."

He put out his hand to her in acknowledgment. She looked at it for a moment as if she doubted whether she would take it; then she put her own into it, and hers burned like a red-hot coal.

She took it away instantly, and rose and walked slowly up to the table, poured out a couple of glasses of champagne, and brought him one and raised the other to her lips.

"Here's luck to you—both!" she said, with a laugh. "May you be happy ever afterward, as they say in the story books," and she looked over the rim of the glass at him, with her dark eyes flashing under the thick brows.

"Thanks, Fin," he said. "You are a good sort, and——." He rose.

"But you don't want to know any more of me," she broke in. "I understand. Oh, don't apologize. I'm cute enough to see why you've told me, why you've come to me first of all. There's to be an end to our friendship——." Her voice broke for a moment, then she hurried on with forced gayety and indifference. "And you're quite right. A man who's going to settle down, doesn't want such acquaintances as me. Well, good-by."

She held out her hand.

Yorke, feeling as a man must feel under such circumstances, when he cannot contradict and would like to do so, hung his head for a moment, then he took her hand, and holding it, said:

"I'm not much loss, Fin. As I told her, I'm a bad lot, and dear at any price, and—there, good-by!"

Then he did a foolish thing. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

She quivered, almost as if he had struck her; her eyes closed, and she leaned heavily against the edge of the table.

Yorke, feeling unutterably miserable, dropped her hand and left the room. He gave the page who helped him on with his coat a sovereign, and got outside.

"Poor Fin!" he muttered, standing on the pavement and staring about him. "Poor Fin!"

And so he got off with the old love number two.

Finetta stood where he had left her for a second, then sprang forward with her magnificent arms stretched out.

"Yorke, Yorke!" broke from her white lips. But the door had closed, and he did not hear her.

She stood erect for a moment, then staggered and fell face downward upon the sofa.

Polly ran to her—locking the door on her way—and raised her head. She had fainted.

Polly poured some wine through the clenched teeth and bathed the set face, and presently Finetta came to; but it was to pass from a swoon into an awful torrent of weeping.

"He's gone! He's gone! Forever!" she moaned. "I shall never see him again! Why did I let him go like that? Why didn't I ask him on my knees to let us be friends still? I should have seen him now and again, and that would have been something; to speak to him, hear him laugh and talk, and call me 'Fin;' but it's all over now. He'll never come back! Oh, I wish I were dead, dead, dead!"

"Hush, hush," implored Polly, trying to soothe her. "He's better gone. There was no good in his staying."

"No, no! I know that! He never cared for me. I only amused him, and directly he left me he forgot me. They're all alike. No, he was different. Look how he came and told me—like a man! Oh, Yorke, Yorke! Oh, he little guesses how I——." Her lips shook, and she hid her face even from her sister.

"Where's your pride, Fin?" whispered Polly, almost as Lady Denby had said to Lady Eleanor.

"My pride!" retorted Finetta. "Ah, you can talk like that, you who don't know what I feel! I haven't any. I'd have followed him round the world like a dog, grateful for a kind word—or a blow! I'd have worked for him like a slave. Poor! He needn't have been poor if he'd married me. He should have had every penny, and I'd have been content to go in rags so long as he had the best of everything; and I'd have made him happy, or die in the trying."

"You'd most likely have died," remarked Polly, with a woman's insight.

"I dare say. Well, I could have died. But it's all over."

She hid her face in her hands and shook like a leaf for a full minute, then suddenly her mood changed, and she started up—in a fury.

The tears dried up in her burning eyes, her face became white, her lips rigid; and as she stood with clenched hands and heaving bosom she looked like an outraged goddess, a tigress robbed of her cub, a woman despised and deserted—and that is a more terrible thing than the outraged goddess or the bereaved tigress, by the way.

"He's a fool!" she panted. "A fool! To leave me for such as her! Says she's pretty!" She strode to the glass and stood erect before it. "Is she better looking than I am? I don't believe it. And what else is she? Nothing. She's poor—she isn't a swell even. And he's left me and that other, that Lady Eleanor, for her! Yes; I could have borne it better if it had been Lady Eleanor; if it had been one of her sort it would be more natural; but a mere nobody, the daughter of an artist!"

In her ignorance poor Finetta regarded the painters of pictures and gate posts as equals.

"A common painter! Why, he'd better have married me!" and she drew a long breath. "I'm as good as she is, and she'll be a lady. I'd make as good a lady as she would."

"You never saw her," ventured Polly, timidly.

The tigress swung round upon her, dashing the wine glasses to the ground in the movement.

"Saw her! I don't want to see her, to know what she's like! I can guess. A dowdy, simpering, doll-faced chit of a girl that caught his fancy! And she'll be his wife, while I——." She raised her clenched hands above her head, and laughed a wild, discordant laugh. "It makes me mad!"

She fell to pacing the room. Her hair had become unfastened, and fell in a black torrent over the creamy satin. Her lithe figure, erect and quivering, looked six feet high. A magnificent spectacle for a painter or sculptor, but not for the man or woman who had offended her.

"I'm flung aside as not fit for him to know, and she'll be his wife. I wish she were here now; I'd kill her! Oh, if I could only do something to separate them! If I could only come between them!"

She flung herself on the sofa, and hid her face on the cushion.

Polly went up to her.

"You're wearing yourself out, Fin," she said. "You'll suffer for this to-morrow. Better come to bed. Besides, what's the use of it? You can't bring him back, or stop his marrying the other girl."

Finetta raised her head, and looked at her as if she did not see her.

"Can't I?" she muttered between her closed teeth. "Can't I? I don't know! Such things have been done. Sometimes there's a way." She put her hand to her brow, and drew a labored sigh. "I can't think; my head's like lead and on fire, and my heart's aching. When did he say the wedding was to be?"

"Soon," said Polly. "What's the use——."

Finetta held up her hand to silence her.

"Go to bed," she said, hoarsely.

"You come too——."

"Go to bed; get out of my sight. I want to be alone, to think. To think! There must be some way to stop it, and—and I'll find it out. Go away——," with a flash of her somber eyes—"Go away and leave me. I'm best alone."

Polly, awed and frightened, crept to the door; but as she paused a moment and looked back she heard the hoarse, broken voice still muttering:

"There must be some way!"

CHAPTER XVI.

THE FOOLISH NOTE.

Yorke walked all the way from St. John's Wood to Bury Street, and it was not altogether a pleasant walk.

There is a popular parlor game called "Consequences," and, after a fashion, he was playing that game as he strode along smoking vigorously.

It is an easy and pleasant amusement running into debt; but there are consequences. It is also an easy and pleasant matter to make love to two women; but the consequences have to be reckoned with, and the reckoning, whether it come sooner or later, is a serious matter.

He had never loved Lady Eleanor, but he respected and liked her. He had certainly never loved Finetta, but he had liked her—liked her very much; and as he made his way through the silent streets his heart—it was by no means a hard one—was filled with pity and remorse.

"It was playing it very rough to go and tell her that I should have to cut her, that she wasn't fit company for me any longer, but what else could I do? I couldn't cut her without a word, without saying 'Good-by,'" he mused. "And how well she took it. No scene! no fuss! no reproaches!" It was well that he was unable to see Finetta at that moment; or perhaps it would have been better for him if he could. "She bore it like a brick. She is a brick! Most women of her class would have raised a duse of a row, and made it hot for me all round. Yes, Fin's behaved well. What a fool I have been! What fools we men all are! Why did I want to strike up a friendship with Finetta of the Diadem? And yet that's scarcely the fair way to look at it, for in a way she's as good as I am. And she'd have gone a hundred miles to do me a service; yes, and have shared her last penny with me. I know that! Poor Fin! Thank Heaven, it's over! I'll begin a new life from to-night, please God. A life devoted to my darling. My darling! Heaven! It scarcely seems true that she is mine. I wonder whether she is asleep. Perhaps she is looking up at these small stars, and——. Yes, I hope she is thinking of me. Jove! It's like having a guardian angel all to one's self to be loved by such a woman as Leslie. I wish I were more worthy of her. I wish I'd met her years ago! What a time I seem to have wasted!"

He had forgotten Finetta long before he reached home, and was wrapped up heart and soul in Leslie, and looking with impatience toward the hour when he could return to Portmaris.

He would have gone back the next day, but the duke had asked him to do one or two things for him; and he, Yorke, was anxious to pay some bills.

He went out after breakfast, and his first call was at a grimy office in a dark and dingy court leading out of Lombard Street. This was the parlor of a certain money-lending spider called Levison, and Lord Yorke was not the first fly that had found its way into it.

Mr. Levison was a grimy man with a hooked nose and thick lips, an unctuous smile, and decidedly Israelite accent. He was dressed in the height of fashion, wore a scarlet necktie in which shone an enormous diamond horse-shoe pin, a thick gold cable albert across his waistcoat, and innumerable rings upon his fingers, which called unkind attention to the fact that the latter were dirty.

This young gentleman greeted Lord Yorke with a mixture of respect and familiarity which made Yorke—and most other persons—feel an almost irresistible longing to kick him.

"And 'ow's your lordship?" said Mr. Levison, with a smile that stretched his flexible lips from ear to ear. "It ain't often we see you in the city, my lord; more's the pity for the city!" And he laughed and rubbed his hands. "What can I have the pleasure of doin' for your lordship? A little accommodation, I s'pose, eh?"

Yorke shook his head.

"Thanks, no, Mr. Levison," he said.

Mr. Levison appeared to be surprised.

"No? Oh, come now, my lord! Not want a little money? You're joking!"

"Strange as it may seem, I am serious," said Yorke as pleasantly as he could. "I don't want any money; in fact, I've come to take up that bill for two hundred and fifty pounds."

And he took out his pocket-book, in which were lying snugly the bank-notes for which he had cashed the duke's check.

Now, it is generally and not erroneously supposed that a Jew is always ready and glad to receive money; but Mr. Levison, singular to relate, looked neither ready nor glad. He stared at Yorke with widely opened eyes, and his face grew first red and then pale.

"You don't mean to say that you want to pay off that two hundred and fifty, my lord?" he said at last and in a tone almost of dismay.

"Startles you, doesn't it?" said Yorke, with a smile, for the Jew's consternation amused him. "It is rather an unexpected and extraordinary proceeding on my part, I'll admit; but——. Get the bill, Levison," and he began to separate the notes.

The Jew gazed at them, and then up at the handsome, careless face, and lastly at the ground.

"Look here, my lord," he said, thickly. "There really ain't any neshesity for you to go and inconvenience yourself, there ain't, indeed! Besides," he had turned to the grimy desk and consulted a grimy account book, "the bill ain't due! There's no call to pay it for some time yet."

"I know, at least I thought so," said Yorke, carelessly; "but I've got some money, and I thought I'd like to clear off something of what I owe you. Why!" and he laughed, "you don't seem inclined to take it. What's the matter? You haven't—" his face grew grave, "you haven't parted with the bills to any one else, Levison?"

Mr. Levison's oily face grew almost pale—say yellow.

"What! Me go and part with the bills of a customer like you! Not me, my lord! 'Tain't likely! I know better what's due to a swell like your lordship."

"Very well, then," said Yorke. "Take my money, and let me have it, please."

"Yesh, yesh, certainly. If your lordship insists; but upon my sacred honor, I'd rather lend you another two-fifty than——. Well, well!" And he went to a safe and fumbled in his pocket.

"Tut, tut!" he exclaimed. "Blessed if I haven't left my keys at my brother's. Excuse me half a minute, will you, my lord? 'Ave a glass of sherry and a smoke while you're waiting——."

"No, no, thanks," said Yorke, who had once been prevailed upon to taste Mr. Levison's sherry, and had smelled the cigars while Mr. Levison had been smoking them. "Look sharp, my cab is waiting."

"Not more than 'arf a minute," said Mr. Levison, and he darted out, down the street, and full pelt into Messrs. Rawlings and Duncombe.

Ralph Duncombe, cool, grave, collected, a contrast to the flurried Israelite, looked up from his writing-table.

"Mishter Dunkombe, sir!" gasped Levison. "Here's Lord Horchester come to take up that bill of two-fifty. Wonderful, ain't it? Let's have it sharp. Moses! I wouldn't have him know I'd sold it to you for twice the money, and he 'arf suspects something a'ready."

Ralph Duncombe looked down at the letter he was writing; finished it, as if he had scarcely heard, then drew a book toward him, looked at it, and said:

"The bill isn't due. Why should Lord Auchester want to pay money before it is wanted?"

"'Ow do I know? Mad, p'raps! Anyhow, he does!"

Ralph Duncombe thought a moment, then he pushed the book from him, and looked straight at the anxious face before him.

"He cannot have the bill," he said.

Levison gasped.

"What?"

"He cannot have it. It suits me to stick by it till it is due."

"Oh, Mishter Dunkombe, sir! What's the meaning of that? What am I to say to him?"

"A mere whim on my part—perhaps," said Ralph Duncombe, coolly, impassively. "What are you to say? Say anything. Offer to lend him more money. I will take any bill he gives you. Good-morning."

He struck the gong standing at his elbow, and Levison, feeling too bewildered to expostulate or argue, was shown out.

He went back slowly, wiping the perspiration from his face. If it were known that he had parted with Lord Auchester's bills he would probably get a bad name with the other 'swells,' and lose half of them as customers; his business would be ruined!

He forced a grin as he entered the office, and threw up his hands with a beautiful gesture of amazement.

"Heresh a go, my lord!" he exclaimed. "Brother's gone off to see a client in the country, and took them confounded keys of mine with him. But there, it don't matter for a day or two, does it? I'll send the bill, or call on your lordship——."

Yorke put his pocket-book back.

"Very well," he said. "Mind, I want to pay the money—while I've got it. You see?"

The Jew grinned.

"I see; before it melts; eh, my lord? But there, as I said, why pay at all? Why not let me lend you——."

Yorke shook his head and laughed.

"No, thanks, Mr. Levison. I don't mean to trouble you in that way again, if I can help it. Good-morning." And with a pleasant nod he went out of the grimy parlor, leaving the spider staring after him with unfeigned surprise.

"Don't want to borrow any more money!" he gasped. "Why, what in the name of Moses has come to him. He—he must be going off his 'ead!"

Yorke dismissed the little incident from his mind, guessing nothing of its significance, or the effect it would have on his future, and had himself driven to Bond Street.

He had commenced the morning by doing his duty—or trying to do it—and now he was going to reward himself by buying a present for Leslie.

He had pondered over what he should get, and had at first, naturally, thought of a ring; but he had remembered that she could not wear it without attracting notice and question, and had decided on a locket.

The man showed him some, and Yorke selected a plain one with the initial 'Y' prettily worked in bas-relief.

While he was paying for it, the shopman, who knew him quite well, brought forward a tray of diamond ornaments.

"The newest designs, my lord," he said.

Yorke shook his head, but even as he did so Finetta flashed across his mind. He looked at the bundle of notes; he had plenty of money; she had behaved remarkably well; she deserved a present, a parting gift; he would give her one.

He knew Finetta's passion for diamonds, and comforted himself with the reflection—a wrong one, as we know—that they would console her for the loss of him.

He was not long in choosing—not half as long as he had been in selecting Leslie's simple locket—and purchased a pendant. It cost him a hundred and thirty pounds.

"Shall I send them, my lord?" asked the man.

"No," said York. "I'll take 'em. Put them up, singly, in a box. I'm going to send them through the post."

The man inclosed them in a couple of wooden boxes, and bowed Lord Auchester out.

York went home, and straight to a drawer in which he kept odd things, and after some amount of rummaging found a carte de visite portrait of himself. He sat down, lit a cigar, and, as neatly as he could, cut out the head of the portrait and fitted it in the locket; wrote on a slip of paper, "From Yorke," and laid them aside.

Then he took a sheet of paper, and dashed off in the charming scrawl which boys acquire at Eton—and never lose—the following note:

"Dear Fin.—Will you accept the inclosed and wear it for the sender's sake, and in remembrance of the many delightful times we have spent together? I thought of you nearly all the way home last night—it was awfully late!—and shall never forget how good you have always been to me. Think of me sometimes when you wear this trifle, and don't think too unkindly!"

"Yours,

"Yorke."

It was a foolish note. But he would be a wise man who could write a wise one under such circumstances. Of course, a wise one wouldn't have written at all; but Yorke was not famous for prudence.

He laid this note beside the beautiful diamond pendant, wrapped, like the locket, in tissue paper, and was putting them in their respective boxes when Fleming came in.

"Lord Vinson, my lord," he said.

Yorke looked up with a shade of annoyance on his face.

"Oh——. Ask Lord Vinson to wait a moment," he said, hurriedly. "There's a midday post for the country, isn't there?"

"Yes, my lord," said Fleming. "Can I help your lordship?" for Yorke was hunting about for string and sealing wax.

"No! Yes. Here, wrap these boxes up in thickish paper, and seal the string. Mind! This, No. 1, goes in this one, and that, No. 2, in that! Understand?"

"Yes, my lord," said Fleming, and no doubt he thought he did. But when he brought them back from the side table at which he had been packing them, and Lord Yorke asked him which was No. 1, Fleming, the usually careful and correct, handed him No. 2!

And so it happened that when, a few minutes later, Fleming walked off with them to the post-office, the locket with the portrait, but with Finetta's letter, was directed to Finetta, and the diamond pendant to Leslie!

CHAPTER XVII.

A WORD OF WARNING.

To Leslie the days seemed to go by like a dream during Yorke's absence. She thought of him every hour, but she had yet scarcely realized all that had happened to her.

If Francis Lisle had not been utterly unlike the ordinary run of parents, he would not have failed to see the change that had come over her; but he was too absorbed in his painting to notice the difference; and, indeed, if Leslie had appeared at breakfast in a domino and mask, or sat during the meal with an umbrella up, he would very likely have failed to see anything extraordinary in the occurrence; and it rather suited him than otherwise that Leslie should sit beside him perfectly silent, with her hands folded in her lap, eyes fixed on vacancy, with a dreamy smile on her lips.

But if Francis Lisle was blind, the duke was not.

His keen eyes noted the change in the expression of the lovely face, the soft light of a newly born joy in the gray eyes, and he guessed the cause.

"Like the rest!" he thought, with the bitter cynicism produced by his pain. "Like the rest! Well, it will afford me a little amusement; it will be a petite comedie played for my special benefit."

And yet at times, when he was free from pain, and he looked up at Leslie as she stood beside his chair, he felt doubtful and uncertain as to the accuracy of his judgment of her.

"She has the eyes of an angel," he muttered, when they were together one morning, the second after Yorke's departure for London. "One would say that they were the clear windows of a soul as pure as a child's."

His muttering was almost audible, and Leslie, awakened by it from a dream, bent down to him, and asked:

"What did you say, Mr. Temple?"

"I was saying—and thinking—that you are very good-natured to keep a crusty, irritable invalid company on such a delightful morning."

"Did you say all that?" she said, with a soft laugh.

"Well, if I didn't say it, I thought it," he responded. "You must find it dull work, but you are used to sacrificing yourself for others, are you not?" and he glanced at the painter who was at work at a little distance on the beach.

"It is not much of a sacrifice to stay with those one likes," she said, half absently.

The duke looked up at her sharply, and yet with a touch of color on his face.

"Thank you. I am to take it that you rather like me than otherwise, Miss Leslie?"

She blushed, and eyed him with sweet gravity.

"I should be very ungrateful if I did not," she said. And mentally she added, "And how could I help liking you; you are his friend?"

"I see," he said. "Well, it is very kind of you to keep me company. I should have missed my cousin—the duke—very much, if you had not been here. I am afraid mine is dull society after his, and that you miss the pleasant drives and sails."

"They were very pleasant, yes," she admitted, a little confusedly.

How hard it was that she should be obliged to deceive this kind-hearted friend of Yorke's, and how she longed for the time when he and her father should know her and Yorke's blissful secrets, when all concealment should be at an end, and her great happiness proclaimed. And yet it was sweet, this secret of theirs; it seemed to make their love more precious and sacred.

"Yes," said the duke. "Yorke is capital company. He is a great favorite wherever he goes."

"Yes," she murmured.

"He's so light-hearted," went on the duke. "And light-hearted people are extremely rare nowadays; but after all it isn't very much to his credit; I mean that it is easy to be joyous when you are young, in perfect health, and are——," he paused a second, "a duke."

"Are dukes so much happier than other people?" she said, with a faint smile.

He winced. She had unconsciously struck home.

"No," he said, laconically. "Most of those I know are very much less happy than the rest of mankind, but it is different with the Duke of Rothbury. He is, as I say, young and in splendid health——," his lips moved and he sighed cynically, "but if he weren't he would still be very popular and always welcome everywhere."

"Why?" said Leslie, looking at him with her guileless eyes.

He met their glance for a moment, then lowered his keen, suspicious ones.

"Is it acting?" he asked himself, and he gnawed at his lip.

"Why? Because he is a duke. If he were old and ugly, and—and twisted as I am, he would still be run after by all sorts and conditions of men—and women," he added, but in a lower voice, as if he were half ashamed of his cynicism.

Leslie understood, and her face flushed for a moment; but it was not with guilt, but the indignation of a pure-hearted girl.

"You mean that they—women—would pretend to like him because of his rank?" she said, quietly, but with gentle gravity.

"That's what I meant," he assented, eyeing her attentively. "There isn't a woman in the world whose heart doesn't leap at the thought of becoming a duchess."

"It is not true!" she said, her eyes flashing down at him with purest indignation. "It is—but you are only speaking in jest, Mr. Temple," and she smiled at the warmth she had been hurried into.

He looked hard at her.

"I am not jesting," he said; "but stating the solemn, shameful fact."

She gazed down at him almost pityingly.

"Ah, you do not know women at all," she said. "No," with a shake of her head, as he opened his lips. "You may know a great many, and they may be very great ladies, and a few of them may be as worldly as you say they are, but not many. I will not believe that."

He fingered his chin with restless fingers, and looked from right to left.

"If she is not acting then—then she is on the brink of a great misery," he thought. "If I could only believe her!"

"You mean that it would make no difference to you whether a man were a duke or not?" he said.

Her face went rather pale.

"Yes, it would make a difference," she said in a low voice. "I would rather not make the acquaintance of a duke, or any one so far above me in rank; and there are thousands of women who feel the same."

"Oh," he says, curtly. "I never was fortunate enough to meet any. Seeing that that is your feeling, it was very kind of you to honor me—I mean my cousin," he corrected himself sharply, "with your friendship, Miss Leslie," and he smiled.

Leslie's cheek burned, and she turned her face from his keen eyes.

"An actress," he muttered. "And yet I'll give her a word of warning, though she doesn't deserve it."

"Did the duke happen to say when he was coming back, Miss Leslie?"

"No," she said. "He said that he might be two or three days."

He laughed.

"I shouldn't be surprised if Portmaris never saw him again."

He saw Leslie start slightly, then a faint smile flashed over her face, a smile of perfect faith. Yorke not come back! She remembered his last word to her. I shall count every moment while I'm away from you, dearest, every moment till I am back with you.

"My cousin is rather erratic," said the duke, casually and indifferently. "He is a very nice fellow, good-hearted and the rest of it; but—well, a little fickle; at least, that's the character the ladies give him."

"Fickle," she said, smiling still.

"Y-es," he said, languidly. "What's that song in 'The Grand Duchess,' 'A butterfly flits from flower to flower?' One mustn't blame the butterfly, you know. 'It's its nature to,' as Dr. Watts says; and, like the butterfly, Yorke is what is called very susceptible. He is always falling in love——."

She moved slightly, and the smile died away from her lips; but the clear eyes met his steadily, unflinchingly.

"And, fortunately, falling out of it again. He's like the man in the play who was in the habit of proposing to some woman every day; and if she accepted him he rode off, and she saw him no more, and if she refused him he asked her to be a sister, an aunt, or something of that kind, and rode off just as easily."

She opened her lips slowly.

"I thought you were a friend of the Duke of Rothbury's, Mr. Temple?" she said, in a very low voice.

The duke flushed.

"Eh? Oh, I see. You think it very base of me to speak ill of him behind his back?"

"That's what I meant," she assented, gravely.

"Oh, but the world wouldn't consider that I had spoken at all ill of him."

"The world!" she said. "How wicked and heartless it must be, this world of yours, Mr. Temple!"

"It is," he said, curtly. "As heartless as a flint."

"Or as the Duke of Rothbury, if he were what you have painted him," she said very softly.

"You don't believe me, then?" he asked, looking up at her from under his thick brows.

She shook her head.

"Not the very least!" she said, actually smiling.

"You forget that I have known him all his life, and that you have only known him five minutes!"

She still smiled.

"But in five minutes one may know——." She stopped, and her face flushed, and the tears arose to her eyes. "No, I don't believe it," she said, her voice tremulous. "There may be some men who are as false and heartless as you say, but not the Duke of Rothbury."

He looked at her gravely, almost pityingly.

"Don't be too sure of that, Miss Leslie!" he said, with a touch of warning in his tone. "He is a good fellow, a charming companion, but——." He was stopped by the expression of pain which shone in her eyes.

"Oh, please let us talk of something else!" she said, quickly. "See, here is the postman."

"I hope he has brought my medicine," said the duke. But the postman, tugging at his cap, handed a small parcel to Leslie.

"For me!" she said, with surprise. "Why, what can it be? Are you sure it is for me and not papa? It is like one of the boxes they send the colors in."

"A sample of a new scent or pearl powder," said the duke, leaning back languidly.

"Why should they send it to me?" she said, laughingly.

She tore off the outer paper as she spoke, and with the pleasant excitement which is always produced by the receipt of a parcel whose contents are unknown, she opened the little wooden box.

The duke heard an exclamation, a cry of amazement, of admiration, of delight, and looked up sharply.

"Is it scent or pearl powder?" he asked, with an amused smile.

She looked at him as if she scarcely heard him. Her eyes were shining, her lips apart.

"It is neither," she said, and without another word, with the little box fast clasped in her hand, ran toward the house.

CHAPTER XVIII.

STRANGE TALK.

She ran up the street and into the house, and up the stairs to her own room, her heart beating fast. Locking the door first, she opened the little wooden box, and took out the pendant, a glimpse of which she had caught as she stood beside the duke.

But though the glitter of the diamonds pleased her as it will every woman, the few words in his handwriting were more precious to her than the costly gems.

Can any one ever tell what her first love letter means to a young girl who is in love with the writer?

Leslie gazed at one line in Yorke's awful scrawl as a Moslem might regard a verse from the Koran, and not once or twice only did her sweet lips kiss the scrap of paper. Then she examined the pendant more minutely, and though her experience of jewelry was of a very limited character, she knew that the gift was an expensive one.

"It is too good, too grand for me," she said, and yet with a sensation of pleasure in its worth. "I should have been as pleased if he had sent me a bunch of flowers bought in the London streets. But, oh, how good of him! And, after all, it is not too grand for his wife. He would think nothing too rare, too costly for her. Oh, my love, my love! If I were only more worthy of you!"

She found a piece of ribbon and put the pendant on it, and hung it around her white throat, and the fire and glitter of the diamonds almost startled her.

"It is just as well that I may not wear it openly—yet," she said to herself with a soft, shy laugh. "I should feel as if every one was staring at me. I wonder whether I shall ever get used to wearing beautiful things like this? He would say 'Yes,' but I feel now as if I never should be able to do so without being conscious of my splendor. But I must hide you for the present, you beautiful thing," and she arranged the pendant so that it nestled over her heart, and buttoned her dress over it, and there it seemed to glow with a soft, consuming fire, as if it knew that it had come from the hand of the man she loved.

Several times during the day she stole up to her room and drew the pendant from its hiding-place, and looked at it with glistening eyes; and if Francis Lisle had not been blind to everything but his awful pictures, he could not but have been startled by the expression on her face after one of these visits.

But if her father was blind the children were not, and as they clustered around her they looked up at her, frank wonder in their wide-open orbs, and one mite lisped:

"What makth 'oo sthmile so, Mith Lethlie. Have 'oo been a dood girl, and got a penny diven 'oo?"

"Yes, I've got a penny given to me, Trottie," said Leslie, taking the child up in her lap and kissing it. "Such a beautiful shining penny."

"Thow it me," said the little one.

But Leslie put her hand on her bosom with a jealous smile.

"No, no; I can't show it even to you, Trottie," she said; "not to any one. And I am not going to buy anything with it, but going to keep it as long as ever I live."

She did not see Mr. Temple again that day, and did not even think of him or the hard, unjust things he had said of Yorke; and if she had, it would only have been to laugh at them. Yorke fickle and false! With that gift of his rising and falling on her heart, she would not have believed an angel if he had come to tell her anything against her beloved.

The duke missed her all that afternoon, missed her very much. He had got used to having her standing or sitting by his chair, and her sweet, low-pitched voice had been as a soothing balm in his moments of pain. And yet he could not wholly trust her, or believe that she was better and less mercenary and self-seeking than the rest of her sex.

His keen eyes had seen the change in her face when he had spoken of Yorke, and he had told himself that what he had prophesied was coming true; this artless-looking girl with the clear, guileless eyes was already aiming at a ducal coronet. It did not occur to him that she might love Yorke for himself alone; or, if it did, he put the thought away from him and hugged his old cynical mistrust of her sex.

The next day passed and no Yorke appeared, but on the morning of the following one he got into the train at Paddington on his way to Portmaris.

As he did so, with a sigh of relief and expectant happiness, he noticed a tall lady dressed in black with a veil over her face pass his carriage and enter the next, and he was struck in an absent kind of way by the grace of her figure; but she disappeared from his mind the moment she passed the window, and he gave himself up to picturing his meeting with Leslie.

A few hours, and then——. He lit a cigar, and stretched his long legs on to the opposite seat and thought.

The few days he had been absent from her had taught this young man how very completely he was in love, and he was actually asking himself why they should not be married at once!

"What's the use of waiting?" he mused; "I shall never be better off. We might just as well be married now——." Then a reflection cut across his roseate visions, and, as Hamlet says, 'gave him pause;' he was fearfully in debt, and though Mr. Levison hadn't turned up with the bill, and seemed more inclined to lend him more money than take any from him, he, Yorke, knew the reason. The money lenders all depended upon his marrying an heiress, and he knew—and his face flushed as he thought of it—that they one and all expected him to marry Lady Eleanor Dallas, and relied upon it.

The moment they heard that he had married what they and the rest of the world, in its language of contempt, would call a pauper, they would swoop down upon him like a flock of kites, and——.

He sat up in the railway carriage and rubbed his forehead.

Couldn't he ask Dolph to lend—give—him the money to pay his debts? Well, he could ask him, and no doubt the duke would do it—if he approved of Yorke's marrying Leslie. But would he approve? Somehow Yorke felt doubtful.

"I might try him," he thought, and he pondered over it until the train reached Northcliffe, and then suddenly an alternative course occurred to him, an idea which flashed upon him suddenly, and sent the blood rushing to his face.

Why shouldn't he and Leslie be married secretly? They might go away, leave England, and settle down in some Continental place quietly until he had screwed enough money out of his income to pay his debts, and then they might proclaim their marriage to the whole world.

His heart beat hopefully, and he was so absorbed in his plans and schemes that he did not notice that the tall lady in black got out at Northcliffe; indeed, he could not have seen her unless he had looked back—which he did not do—for she did not get out until the rest of the passengers had alighted, and then kept in the background until the station was clear.

Yorke got a fly at once and had himself driven to Portmaris, and as the ancient vehicle rattled down the street he looked eagerly at the windows of Sea View. But Leslie was out, and with a little pang of disappointment Yorke ran up the stairs of Marine Villa.

The duke was sitting in his chair, his head resting on his hands, and Yorke saw at once that it was a 'bad afternoon' with the invalid. The duke raised his head, with a transient smile of welcome on his pale face.

"Well, Yorke, back again," he said, holding out his hand. "I was just on the point of telling Grey to pack up."

Yorke started.

"What, tired of Portmaris already, Dolph?" he said.

The duke sighed.

"About five minutes is long enough for me anywhere. There is only one place I shall not get weary of—the grave. But this isn't a very cheerful greeting, Yorke. What's the news?"

"Oh, nothing! I saw Lang"—this was the duke's agent—"and told him what you wanted done, and——."

"Oh, thanks!" said the duke, indifferently; "and you have had a pleasant time, I hope? Did you see Eleanor?"

Yorke nodded.

"Yes, oh, yes; had luncheon there. She's very well. What a lovely sunset to-night! 'Pon my word, this is a jolly little place."

"Jolly, is it?" said the duke, eyeing him keenly.

"Hem! Well, perhaps it's jollier when you are here. It's been dull enough without you, any way. As I said, we have missed you very much, young man."

"'We'? Meaning you and Grey?" said Yorke, standing at the window and watching the opposite ones anxiously.

The duke smiled grimly.

"Well, I dare say Grey has missed you; but I was thinking, when I spoke, of—Miss Lisle."

"Oh, Miss Lisle," said Yorke, flushing like a schoolgirl. "I—I hope she is all right."

"Yes, I think so. The fact is, I have not seen very much of her since yesterday morning, when in the course of conversation I ventured to hint that your grace——."

Yorke started.

"Your grace was not quite perfect."

Yorke laughed uneasily, and kept his back carefully turned to the duke.

"She seemed to think that you were more divine than human, and put out her claws in your defense like a woman—and a cat."

A spasm of pain shot through him and he groaned faintly, and so, though all Yorke's soul arose in horror at hearing his beloved likened to a cat, he held his tongue.

"In short," continued the duke, wearily, "I was quite correct in my surmise as to what would take place. The girl is dying to marry your grace and become a duchess."

Yorke bit his lip.

"It's time that bit of nonsense came to an end," he said, with angry impatience. "I didn't like it from the first, Dolph, and I like it now less than ever."

The duke waved his hand with tired indifference.

"It was an idiotic idea," he said; "but it has served my purpose. I have been left alone here, and the rest and quiet have done me good. You can tell the Lisles, and whom else you like, at once if you choose. Stay," he said; "wait till to-morrow evening. I shall have gone by that time."

"Gone?" said Yorke. "You mean going?"

"Yes," said the duke, impatiently; "I am tired of it. I'll go and hide myself at Rothbury, I think; and I think you had better go, too."

"Why?" asked Yorke, but his voice faltered slightly.

"Well," responded the duke, grimly, "I've an idea—don't trouble to contradict me, it isn't worth while—that Miss Leslie has succeeded in making an impression on your grace——."

"And that would be such an awful calamity, wouldn't it?" said Yorke, feeling his way.

The duke laughed cynically.

"No, I suppose not. You would ride away, like the man in the ballad, and leave her weeping. Not that the youngest and most unsophisticated girls weep much now, I believe; they dry their tears and look out for the next man."

"Dolph, for a man who loves and respects women—and I know you do——."

"Oh, do you?" snarled the duke, or, rather, the demon of pain that had got possession of him.

"Yes," said Yorke. "For one who loves and respects them, you talk strangely."

"Well, well. We don't want to squabble about women in general or this young woman in particular. All I mean to say is that, though usually I think they are well punished for their mercenary scheming, I've a sneaking fondness and pity for Leslie Lisle, and I don't want you to let her think that she has a chance of being a duchess. In short—well, of course, you have been flirting with her; you always do, you know. Well, leave her alone, and go back to London." He sighed. "That's good advice. We'll let her off this time."

Yorke stood motionless, with stern face.

"If I were the duke I have been masquerading as," he said, "I could not find a better woman or one——."

"More fitted by nature to adorn, etc. I know," interrupted the duke with peevish irritation. "But, unfortunately, you aren't the duke—I wish to Heaven you were, or anybody were but I!—and as you are not, and only Yorke Auchester, with not enough to keep yourself upon, to say nothing of a wife, you can't afford to do more than flirt with her. There! The subject is played out. You have got to marry Eleanor Dallas, my dear fellow. She is made for you, and you will be as happy as a man ever can be in this beastliest of all beastly worlds."

"You dispose of me very easily," said Yorke, his throat dry, his eyes flashing, but his back still turned.

"Yes, because I care for you, and am anxious for your future and happiness."

"Thanks," said Yorke, in a softer voice. "But—well, we are arguing. Suppose I do not care for Eleanor?"

The duke laughed quietly.

"My dear Yorke, no man could be loved by such a beautiful creature as Eleanor and, marrying her, help falling in love with her within the first fortnight. Oh, how tired I am! Don't let us spoil the pleasure I get out of your return by wrangling. Do as I say; leave this little girl with the gray eyes and dark hair—what eyes they are, by the way!"—and he sighed—"leave her alone. You can't marry her, and though you could punish her for wanting to marry you by flirting with her—well, I don't somehow want to see her punished. Seriously, Yorke, I ask you to do this as—as a favor."

Yorke left the window.

"You release me from my promise, from our arrangement regarding the title?" he said, quietly, and with a tone of decision in his voice which the duke would have remarked if he had not been in such intense pain.

"To-morrow—not till to-morrow," he said. "I'll tell Grey we are going to-morrow, and then, just before we go, you can tell the Lisles, explain the reason—anything. I care nothing. I shall be out of reach of the fuss the story will make even in this outlandish place."

"Good," said Yorke, and he drew a long breath. "I'm going out for a stroll—dinner as usual, I suppose?" And the duke heard him going down the stairs two steps at a time.

The duke's few decided, querulous words had fired Yorke. He was to marry Lady Eleanor, was he? Ha-ha! He laughed almost grimly. There was only one woman in the world he would marry, and, if she would have him, he would make her his wife at once.

He strode down the street, and on to the quay, and at a little distance on the beach saw Mr. Lisle, painting as usual.

He looked up impatiently as Yorke came crashing over the stones, and accosted him.

"Oh, how do you do—how do you do, your grace?" he said, in his thin voice, and with a hasty glance at him as if he begrudged every moment from his picture.

"Is—is Miss Lisle out with you?" said Yorke, trying to speak with nothing warmer in his voice than conventional politeness.

"Leslie?" looking around absently. "Yes, she was here a moment ago; but she has wandered off somewhere." And his manner and tone plainly added:

"And I wish to goodness you'd wander off, too."

"How is the picture getting on?" asked Yorke, looking at the daub which Lisle had painted over and over again, making it worse at each stroke.

"Very well—very well, I think," was the reply. "You like it?" and a faint red came into the pale thin cheeks. Somehow Yorke fancied that they had grown thinner and paler during the last few days. "I am going to make a masterpiece of it. I am working hard, very hard. Isn't it very hot and close this morning? I have a stupid headache——. Yes. Would you mind standing out of the light? Thank you."

Yorke left him; he knew it would be of no use to ask the dreamer in which direction Leslie had gone.

"Poor old fellow," he thought. "We'll take him with us, and look after him together. Give him his painting tools, and he'll be happy enough!"

He walked along the beach and on to the cliffs and suddenly he came upon Leslie. She was sitting in a cleft of the rocks, a book on her lap, but it was lying face downward, and she was looking out to sea. He stole behind her, and bent down and kissed her. She started, but not violently, and the blood rushed to her face.

"Yorke!" was all she said, but all her love, her joy on his return breathed in the single word.

He took both her hands, and sat down beside her.

"I startled you, dearest!" he said.

How lovely she looked! How sweet, and, ah, how pure and good! Not Eleanor herself could look more refined, more spirituelle than this love of his—his Leslie.

"No!" she said, with a faint smile, and a little shyness in her voice and eyes. "I ought to have been startled, but I was not. Perhaps it was because I was thinking of you. When did you come back?"

"A few minutes ago, dearest," he said. "Has it seemed long to you? I thought, perhaps, that you would have forgotten me."

She smiled at him.

"Well, I might have done so," she said, with delicious archness; "but you provided against that, did you not?"

He did not understand for a moment, then he laughed.

"You got it all right?"

"Ah, yes," she said, with a little sigh of gratitude and content. "I wish you could have seen me when it came! I was standing beside Mr. Temple when the postman brought it, and I cried out—well, like a schoolgirl!"

He looked at her, wrapt in delight at her delight.

"It was a happy thought of mine, then?" he said.

"Yes, but why did you send me so grand a present," she said in a low voice. "Anything would have done; but that——." She laughed and colored. "It was too rich, too costly for such a simple person as I am!"

He laughed. So she thought the plain little locket rich and costly. What would she have considered the diamond pendant he had sent to Finetta? "God bless my darling! My modest pearl!" he thought.

"And you were pleased with it?" he said. "It occurred to me that you might like it; for a minute or two I feared that you might consider me conceited in sending it, that a ring——."

She shook her head.

"It is beautiful—beautiful!" she said. "Its only fault is that it is too good, too costly. The merest trifle would have served to tell me that you had not—forgotten me! And, indeed, I did not need anything."

"You trusted me so completely, dearest?" he said.

"Yes," she said simply, with a faint wonder in her voice at the earnestness in his.

"You trusted me," he said, as earnestly as before. "And how if I were to ask you to trust me still, to trust me in a greater degree, Leslie?"

She looked at him, still smiling.

"What is it?" she asked; and the question was a good reply to his.

"It is just this," he said, taking her hand in both his and holding it tightly. "See, dearest, I hesitate to tell you—it is so much to ask you! And the worst of it is that I cannot give you the reason——."

Her face paled, but she looked at him bravely.

"Are—are you going to leave me again? If you must go——."

The love in her voice, in her eyes, made his heart actually ache.

"Leave you?" he said. "Well, yes; but it will be only for a few hours a day, if—if you consent to do what I am going to ask you?"

"What is it?" she asked, still calmly.

"I want you to marry me—at once, Leslie?" he said in a low voice, and almost solemnly.

She started, and her hand quivered in his.

"Marry—you—at once!" she whispered, her bosom heaving, her long dark lashes trembling.

"You are frightened, dearest?" he said, drawing her nearer to him.

She was silent a moment.

"No," she replied in a whisper, "not frightened, I think, but——."

"And that isn't all," he said almost desperately. "I want our marriage to be a secret one."

She started now, and drew her hand from his, turning her pale face to him with almost pained surprise.

"Listen, Leslie," he said, getting her hand back again. "There are reasons why it is necessary—do you understand, my darling, necessary—that no one should know of our engagement. The other day, when—when I told you I loved you, and asked you to be my wife, I did not think of those reasons; I didn't think of anything but you. But they came home to me when I was in London. It sounds strange, almost incredible——."

"No, not incredible," she murmured.

"You would believe anything I told you, you mean?" he asked, with bated breath.

Her clear eyes met his with her assent in them as plainly as if she had spoken.

"My darling! And I cannot tell you——. But, Leslie, in a word, I am not free—I mean that I am not my own master——."

A faint smile chased the slightly troubled look from her face.

"It sounds so strangely," she said. "A duke and not your own master——."

He reddened, and his eyes dropped before hers.

"Heaven and earth!" broke from him almost passionately. "Leslie—I beg of you not to—to call me that again——."

"Not——." She looked at him questioningly.

"Yes. Yes—I do beg of you, dearest. Not, we will say, for another day. After that——," he drew a long breath, and brushed the hair from his forehead impatiently. "I will explain then why I ask you, dearest. I will explain everything. Don't—don't—be frightened, dearest! Don't think there is any real mystery! You will—yes, you will laugh, when you hear what it is!"

"Shall I?" she says, trustfully. "I am not frightened, I am not even—I think—very curious——."

"Oh, my darling! And you do not even ask me why this secrecy, this concealment, is necessary?"

"No," she says, after a pause, and placing her other hand in his. "If you say so I am content. I suppose——," she averts her face a little—"I suppose you do not wish your people to know that—-that you are going to marry one so far beneath you, one so unfit to be a duchess——."

He stifles a groan.

"It is not that," he says. But for his promise to the duke he could tell her all. Tell her that he is not a duke with lands and gold galore, but a poor man so incumbered and crippled by debt that he dare not let it be known that he is not going to marry a fortune! "Leslie, I cannot tell you! I am not free to tell you, till—yes, to-morrow! Will you not trust me?"

Her breath comes fast for a moment as she looks out to sea, then she turns to him.

"I cannot but trust you," she says almost piteously. "I could not doubt you if I tried."

"My angel, my dearest!" he says, fervently, reverently. "You shall never regret having trusted me, never! Now, listen, Leslie! There is one person, of all others, who must not know what we are going to do—Mr. Temple."

"Mr. Temple?" she says, not suspiciously, not even curiously but with faint surprise.

"Yes," he says. "He suspects, or half-suspects, already that I love you. It must be kept from him. You will understand why when I tell you all—when I clear up the mystery. Now, see——." He stops and laughs. His face is flushed with excitement, and his eyes sparkling. "To-night I will go up to town——."

"To-night——," she breathes.

"Yes," he says. "There is no time to be lost—you will see that when you know all. To-morrow I will get a special license, and that same day you must come up to London——."

She trembles.

"Alone?" she asks in a still voice.

"No, no," he says. "You must persuade your father——. Stay! I will manage that! I will get a well-known dealer I know to wire to him; some question about his pictures, something that will bring him up."

She trembled still.

"The moment you arrive you must telegraph your address to me. I will tell you where to wire——." He takes out an old envelope, and writes:

"Lord Auchester——."

Then with an exclamation tears it up, and on another piece of paper, writes:

"Yorke,

"Dorchester Club,

"Pall Mall."

"Mind, dearest! Send the telegram at once, and at once I will come to you, and—the rest you must leave to me. You will?"

"I will!" she says, almost inaudibly, and as solemnly as ever marriage vow was whispered.

Her great love and trust overwhelm him, and something like tears—yes, tears—dim his bright eyes.

"My darling, if I ever forget your love and trust, your goodness to me, may Heaven forget me!" he says in a voice that makes her thrill. "I will make you happy, Leslie, happier than any woman ever was before! Every hour of my life——." His voice breaks. "Oh, my darling, what have I done that Heaven should send me such an angel!"

The tears are in her eyes now.

"I've made you cry!" he says. "Ah, I know! You are thinking of your father, Leslie!"

She starts guiltily. For the first time in her life, the life devoted to him, she has forgotten her father.

"Do not fret about him. He shall go with us; he shall belong as much to me as to you. What! do you think I would separate you——."

They sit hand in hand for—how long? At last he tears himself away.

"Remember, dearest!" are his last words. "Send to me directly—the moment—you reach London. And, Leslie, fear nothing! Why, when one thinks of it," and he laughs, "what is there to fear?"

He is gone at last. She stands and watches him as he makes his way—with many a backward glance—along the quay; then she sinks on to the rock again.

Her heart is throbbing, a mist is floating before her eyes; she cannot think, cannot see. So unconscious of everything around her is she that, when half an hour later the dark, graceful figure of a woman passes near her nook, she does not heed or notice it. She is in Love's land, and rapt in Love's dream.

CHAPTER XIX.

FINETTA'S WAY.

After a time Leslie got up, but she wanted to be alone a little longer; she felt that she could not talk even to her father just then; she wanted to be alone to think over all Yorke had told her. She walked a few yards toward the quay, and saw that Mr. Lisle was still painting; then she turned, and slowly paced in the direction of Ragged Point, which stretched out dark and sullen in the sunlight.

As she had said, not a doubt of Yorke's truth and honor cast a shadow over her happiness. If he said that it was necessary that they should be married at once and secretly, it must be so—it should be so! He was her lover, her master, her king. She had given herself to him absolutely; she trusted him because she could not help herself.

She had almost reached the point, and would have gone on, but she remembered that the tide was coming in, and that there would not be time to get round before the sea rose above the narrow ledge of rock at the foot of the cliffs, and she was turning back when she caught sight of something dark above a rock at the very foot of the point.

For a moment she thought it was a bird, then she saw that it was a hat—a woman's hat. Someone was sitting there. In an instant it struck her that it might be a stranger, unacquainted with the conformation of the coast line, and that if she sat there for a few minutes longer she would be unable to get back or to turn the point.

Leslie looked at the tide, and was startled to find that it had run up quicker than she had thought. There would be barely time to reach the woman behind the rock and warn her. She ran forward as quickly as she could and shouted at the top of her voice, but the voice of the incoming waves beating against the rocks drowned hers.

She looked round, hoping to see a boat or a fisherman, but no one was in sight; and she and the unknown, sitting there in all unconsciousness of her peril, were alone in the grim place.

Most women would have paused and thought of her own safety, but Leslie and selfishness had not yet made acquaintance, and she hurried on, running where there was a bare bit of sand, and scrambling over the rocks that lay in her path. At last she reached the one behind which the woman she had come to warn was sitting, and stood before her breathlessly.

"Oh, quick! Quick!" she cried pantingly. Then she stopped, and recoiled a little. It was a girl, seated in an attitude of weariness and lassitude, her elbows on her knees, her head bowed. Even in this first moment Leslie noted the grace and sorrowful abandon of the figure; but it was the uplifted face that made her recoil, for it was that of the woman she had seen below St. Martin's Tower—it was the woman who had sung the disreputable music-hall ditty.

There was no reckless gaiety in the face now, but a misery and despair so eloquent that even as she recoiled, Leslie's heart ached with pity for her.

The dark eyes looked at Leslie vacantly for a moment, then flashed with sudden anger.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" she asked, half sullenly, half defiantly.

Leslie flushed at the tone in which the greeting was conveyed.

"I—I saw you sitting here," she said quickly, and a little tremulously, for the dark face disquieted her, and inspired her with a vague uneasiness. "I saw you from the beach yonder, and I thought that perhaps you were a stranger."

"I am a stranger. Yes, what of it?" said the woman, as sullenly and suspiciously as before.

"And you do not know that this is Ragged Point, and that the tide is coming up fast, very fast," said Leslie quickly.

"Is it? What does it matter?" was the dull response.

"Oh, do you not understand?" said Leslie earnestly. "When the tide comes up here, where you are sitting, you will not be able to go on or turn back. You see how the point stretches out?"

The dark eyes looked wearily to right and left.

"I see," she said. "No, I didn't know it. I don't know how long I've been sitting here." She looked up at the sky. "The tide comes up here, does it?"

"Yes, yes!" said Leslie hurriedly. "Pray come away at once!" for the girl had made no attempt to get up. "We have only just time to get round the point, even if we run. Come at once!" and in her eagerness she held out her hand to help her to rise.

The girl disregarded the outstretched hand, and rose wearily, sullenly.

"I suppose I should have been drowned if you had not seen me?" she remarked listlessly.

"Oh, I hope not; I hope not!" said Leslie. "But I am very glad I did see you. I only caught sight of the top of your hat. You had better take my hand. I am used to getting over the rocks and stones."

"I can get on all right," said the girl sullenly, refusing the proffered assistance. "I'm as young as you are, and as strong," she added, glancing out of the corners of her dark eyes at Leslie.

"I am glad you are strong," said Leslie gravely, as she looked at the swiftly, surely incoming sea; "for we shall have to run."

Her companion stopped and looked seaward too, and with a strange expression.

"Oh, why do you wait?" demanded Leslie. "Do you not understand that there is not a moment to lose?"

The girl laughed a reckless, miserable laugh, which was a grotesque reflection of the laugh which Leslie had heard on the tower when she had last seen her.

"I was thinking if it was worth while," she said moodily.

Leslie stared at her.

"Worth while!" she echoed unconsciously.

"Yes. I'm not sure it wouldn't be better and easier to stop here and let the water come up. It would save a lot of trouble." She laughed again.

With a faint shudder, Leslie turned away from the dark eyes and seized the speaker's arm.

"You must come at once!" she said firmly.

The woman drew back for a moment; then, as if yielding against her will, allowed Leslie to draw her forward.

They hurried over the rocks in silence for a moment or two, the waves splashing against their feet; then Leslie stopped and uttered an exclamation, her eyes fixed on the cliff before them, her face suddenly pale.

"What is the matter? Are we too late?" asked her companion dully and indifferently.

"Yes, we are too late!" replied Leslie in a low voice. Then she caught her breath and forced a smile. "Do not be frightened. We may get round the other way; the ledge of rock is wider there, but it is more difficult to get over. We must go back. Follow me."

She turned and sprang quickly from rock to rock, and her companion followed her example. They gained the spot where the girl had been sitting, but it was now covered by the sea, and they had to wade ankle deep.

Leslie caught the girl's hand.

"Hold fast!" she said in a quick whisper. "If we gain that point there, where the rock sticks out——."

Even as she spoke a spurt of foam covered the spot indicated, and the waves dashed over it. She stopped and looked round her, her face white and set.

"We are too late here, too," she said with a smothered sob. "Too late!" and she covered her face with her hands.

The other girl leant against the cliff and stared dully at the angry waves, creeping, creeping like some wild beast towards them.

"You mean we are going to die," she said in a low, harsh voice. "Going to die like rats in a hole. Well," and she shrugged her shoulders, "I don't care much, myself. You see, when you came up just now, I was wishing I was dead."

Leslie shuddered, and put up her hand as if to stop her. Death was too near to be spoken of so lightly.

"Yes, I was. You're shocked, I dessay. I'm sorry for you. It's a pity you didn't stop where you were. You're not tired of life, judging by your face."

"Tired of life!" panted Leslie; "oh, no, no!"

"So I should say," said the other sullenly. "So you don't understand what I mean, and what I feel?"

"No, I don't understand," said Leslie, scarcely knowing what she was saying. "But it is dreadful, dreadful to hear you, and at such a moment. Hah!" She broke off with an exclamation of horror, and drew her companion back close to the face of the cliff, for a wave had dashed at their feet and wet them to the waist.

"It's coming up pretty fast," said the girl. "It won't take long to——. Isn't there any chance for you? I don't care about myself."

Leslie screened her eyes with her hand.

"A boat might be passing," she said faintly. "Oh, to think that they are so near—that there are people just round that bend, who, if they knew—only knew!—would risk their lives to save us," and she sank at the foot of the cliff and hid her face in her hands.

"I'm sorry," said the other. "It's rough on you to lose your life for me, a stranger, too."

Leslie sprang up, her eyes wild with despair.

"We will not die!" she cried. "We will not! Do you hear? Oh, I cannot die; I cannot leave him—like this!" and she beat her hands together.

"You're thinking of your husband—who?" asked the other, eyeing her half pityingly. "It's always a man. That's where I've got the pull of you," and she laughed. "My man wouldn't care whether I lived or died. He's left me already."

The anguish in her voice, the reckless despair, went to Leslie's heart. She shuddered as she looked at the dark eyes.

"Left you!" she breathed. "Oh, now I understand! Ah, yes; I know now why you want to die."

"Yes," was the bitter response. "That's where we women are such fools. We care. Men don't. You think your husband, or sweetheart, or whoever he is, will break his heart for the loss of you!" she laughed mockingly. "Not he! They don't break their hearts so easily! He'll get over it and marry another woman almost before you're—cold in your grave, I was going to say."

Leslie shrank back from her as far as she could, and put her hands up to her ears.

"Oh, hush, hush!" she panted. "It is not true! It is wicked and false! I will not listen to you. Oh, forgive me!" she broke off, her indignation and horror softened by the misery on the white face and dark eyes staring so hopelessly at the angry sea. "How you must have suffered, how you must have loved him to be so wretched, so indifferent."

"Oh, yes, I loved him. I loved him—well, as much as you loved the man you're thinking of——."

"When—when did it happen—when did he leave you? Why? Tell me," said Leslie. "Let us talk—try and forget that it is coming nearer and nearer, that we have only a few minutes—"

"Yes, we haven't long," was the response. "I've been watching that rock there, almost in a line with us. You could see the top a moment ago; it's covered now. When did he leave me? Only a few nights ago. Why? The old story. He got tired of me, I suppose. Anyhow, he met someone else."

"And—and you were to have been his wife!" breathed Leslie pityingly. "And you loved him! Oh, how could he be so cruel, so heartless?"

The other looked down at her, and laughed harshly.

"Why, men are like that, all of them."

"No, no! Not all! They are not all so base, so vile."

"You think so. You wait! Perhaps your turn will come. But I forgot," she laughed again. "Your man won't have the chance to leave you—there, I beg your pardon," for Leslie had shrunk away from her. "Don't mind me or what I say. I'm half out of my mind. I've had no sleep since—since he left me, and I've come a long journey, and eaten nothing. Yes, I'm half mad. I was a fool to follow him. I ought to have stayed at home; but I've got my punishment."

"You came after him? He is here, then?" asked Leslie in a pitying whisper, watching the waves as she spoke.

"Yes," said she; then with a sigh, "Yes, and I've seen him. I meant to speak to him, to—to—try and get him back; but my heart failed me, and I crept out here to be alone. It wasn't only to see him that I came. I wanted to see her."

"Her?" repeated Leslie, half absently.

"Yes. The woman that stole him from me. But it doesn't matter now. Nothing matters to us two, does it? How much longer?"

The question almost drove Leslie frantic with agony, the anguish of despair. It was all very well for this poor creature, abandoned, deserted by the man she loved, to take death so coolly; but she, Leslie, was not deserted and unhappy. Her lover, her Yorke, was going to make her his wife; in a few days, a few hours, he would be waiting for her. Yorke, Yorke! Her heart called to him. And though the name did not leave her lips, the voice within her seemed to give her courage, to fill her with a fierce, almost savage, determination to live.

She looked up at the cliff with straining eyes. It was almost perpendicular and smooth just above them, but a little further along there were a few scrubby bushes projecting from the surface. It was just possible, if they could reach those, that they might at least gain some few inches of foothold. Just possible, though the mere thought of the attempt made her tremble.

"What are you staring up there for?" asked her companion. "You couldn't climb it, if you tried."

"No," panted Leslie. "But we will try!"

The other shook heir head, but Leslie seized her by the hand.

"Come!" she gasped hoarsely. "Better to try and—and fall, than stand here to wait for death. I cannot wait! Come, hold my hand tightly. We will escape or die together."

As if she had caught something of Leslie's frantic desire of life, the other girl gripped Leslie's hand.

"Come on, then," she said. "Though you'd have more chance alone."

"No, no! Together or not at all," cried Leslie, and she plunged into the water.

For a moment or two it seemed as if they would be carried off their feet, as if they had rushed into the arms of the death from which they had been shrinking; but they were both young and strong, and they accomplished together that which would have been impossible if they had been separate.

Gasping for breath, half blinded by the spray, deafened by the roar of the waves, they stood on a narrow ledge of rock, clutching at the bush above their heads, the water rushing nearly to their knees.

CHAPTER XX.

"I'M GOING TO LIVE, AND SO ARE YOU."

"We shall hold on here for about two minutes," said the woman grimly, "if the bush don't give way before that."

Leslie turned her face to the wall, and shut her eyes.

"And he will be waiting for me!" she murmured. "He will not know, will think I have mistrusted him. I shall never see him again, never hear his voice! Oh, why did we part to-day; why didn't I ask him, pray him to take me with him. Never to see him again——." She broke off with a sob that shook her. "My arm is numbed, I am falling!" she said with a wail. "Tell him—tell him—oh, God, and I love him so!"

The agony in her voice seemed to go straight to her companion's heart. The dark face flushed red, her eyes shone with a kind of pity.

"Hold on!" she said, almost hissed between her white teeth shut fast. "You shan't die! You tried to save me, you risked your life for me, and I'll save you. Put your arm round my neck. Don't be afraid. I'm strong. I can dance for hours; my ankles are like steel. Cling to me, I say, with one hand, anyhow."

Scarcely knowing what she was doing, Leslie released the bush with one hand, and put her arm round her companion's neck.

"If I'd only a drop of brandy!" muttered the woman. "How cold your arm feels; you're not going to faint! For God's sake don't do that, or we're both lost; for I don't mean to let you go now. Die! Who says we're going to die? I want to live now! After all, he's not quite lost—my man, I mean! He may come back. I'll get him back. I'll best this other woman or know the reason why!"

Her face was flushed, her voice husky with excitement.

"No use, no use!" moaned Leslie.

"No use! What do you mean! Am I ugly, hump-backed? Do you mean she's better looking than I am! I don't believe it! He's been caught by a new face. That isn't what you mean? You're going to fall? Not you! Hold on tight now, for I'm going to have a shy at the bush above. There's a bit of a path." She laughed fiercely, defiantly. "Old Faber had us do gymnastics. I used to hate 'em; but I'm much obliged to him now. Put your foot against the rock and spring—not too hard, mind—when I do. Once let me get a grip of that bush up there, and I'll hang on or fight my way till my arms drop off. Die! Why should I? I was a fool! I'll get him back, you see if I don't! No, we won't die. You shall have your husband again! Now!" she breathed between her clenched teeth. "If you've got any pluck in you, if you want to see your husband again, put your heart into it! Now!"

She made a spring; they both sprang at the same moment, as if they were one body inspired by the same will, and the woman got hold of the bush, and clung with the strength and tenacity of a leopardess.

"Ah!" she gasped. "We've done it! Cling on to me! We'll wait while I count twenty, and then we'll go for the path."

"No—no!" panted Leslie. "I could not, I could not! Let us stay here till——."

"Till this bit of ledge crumbles under us with our weight, and lets us drop like poisoned flies! No, no! I don't feel like that. It isn't convenient to die now; it was just now! I'm going to live, to live! And so are you!"

She counted the twenty, then put her arm around Leslie's waist.

"Now! Put your hand on my shoulder and cling with the other to the bits of bush and stump, and don't look down! Mind that, or you'll drop, as sure as fate."

Leslie shuddered. Her heart was beating wildly, but a grand hope was creeping over her. Was it possible that she should live and see Yorke once more?

Slowly she felt her way along the surface with her hand, till she got hold of the dry but firmly rooted scrub, then she drew herself up and along the narrow ledge, which was a fissure in the rock rather than a path. No one, in cold blood, could have maintained a footing there for more than thirty seconds, but these two were fighting for dear life, and their blood was burning at fever heat, and they managed, almost miraculously, to creep, crawl, drag themselves upward and still upward.

Below them roared the angry waves, as if with mocking rage at their attempts to escape their voracious maw. Above their heads whirled the gulls, screaming weirdly. Every now and then a stone, displaced by their feet, rolled and sprang from point to point, and ultimately bounded into the gulf below them; and each time Leslie felt that in a moment she would be bounding and falling like the stone, to the hideous death.

For some minutes neither spoke. They could hear each other's breath coming in thick, labored gasps; and Leslie, who was in front, now and again felt her companion's breath striking, like that of a hot furnace, on her neck.

"Keep on! Hold tight!" she heard her say presently. "Keep your eyes up; the path's broadening. If—if we can hold on another minute or two—or a year, for that's what it seems like!—we're saved!"

Leslie could not reply; her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth; her lips, dry and stiff, would not move. But still as she climbed her heart's voice murmured "Yorke, Yorke!" and she drew courage from it. It was worth fighting for, this life of hers, this life which his love had made so precious, so beauteous. If she lived she would be his wife. His wife! Yes, she would live, she would fight on while there was breath in her body, while there was strength in her fingers to clutch an inch of even the moss on the cliff's surface.

In such moments Time is not. It is swallowed up in the agony, the suspense, the mingled hope and despair which rack and wring the heart and brain. She scarcely knew how long they had been making their awful journey through the valley of the shadow of death, scarcely realized that they were saved, when she saw the edge of the cliff just above her, and with one great effort raised herself above it—above it!—and threw herself upon the level ground, gripping the short turf with her hot fingers as if she dreaded that something would drag her back again, and hurl her into the awful sea whose voice still howled faintly in her ears.

She lay thus for a minute or two, her companion lying at her elbow, panting, beside her; then, with a great sob, Leslie rose to her knees and poured out her heart in thanksgiving to Him who had restored her to life—and to Yorke!

The woman stood and eyed her with a pale face and half lowered lids.

"Where are we?" she said at last.

Leslie rose and turned to her with both hands outstretched.

"Oh, what can I say, how can I thank you?" she exclaimed in great agitation. "You have saved my life!"

The woman wiped her lips and forced a smile.

"That's a rum way of putting it," she said, her voice shaking a little. "If I did, you saved mine first. It was a narrow squeak for both of us."

She looked round almost impatiently.

"Where are we?" she repeated. "I—I want to get back to London as soon as I can. I——'ve been half out of my mind, I think, and this—this affair has pulled me round. Don't you take any notice of what I said about—about him, the man I spoke of. I don't believe I've lost him, after all. I can get him back." She laughed discordantly, and flushed, as if half ashamed of the new hope that the escape from death had seemed to give her. "He's—he's no worse than the rest. They're all alike, easily taken with a new face. And—and I know he likes me. He was sorry for going directly after he'd left me, and—yes—" she pushed the black hair from her face—"yes, I'll bet my life I get him back."

Leslie looked at her with a smile of sympathy and encouragement.

"Yes," she said, "I hope so; ah, yes, I hope so! It was dreadful to see you and hear you when we were—down there!" and she glanced with a shudder at the edge of the cliff.

"Yes, I was pretty low then," said the other. "It was a hard fight, wasn't it? You and I ought to be friends; but—" she paused and looked hard and almost shyly at Leslie's face—"but perhaps you wouldn't care for that. You're a lady—a swell, I can see, and I—well, I'm not fit——."

Leslie put out her hand to stop her.

"You must not talk like that now—now, just when we have escaped death together. And I hope—ah! yes, I hope that you will be happier, that he—" she blushed, and her voice grew low; love was so sacred a thing to her—"that he you love will come back to you. If he does you must forgive him, and take him back——."

She stopped, for the tall, graceful figure in front of her swayed and staggered; and the dark eyes grew suddenly heavy and closed.

Leslie uttered a cry of alarm.

"Oh, what is it? You are ill, faint——."

The other opened her lips as if to speak, then fell heavily forward on Leslie's arm.

Leslie knelt beside her on the grass, and looked round anxiously. The solitude was as intense as that which they had just left. They were still alone together with no help near.

Leslie remembered that a small spring ran from a cleft on the cliff, and, though the thought of going near the edge made her heart quake, she gently set the woman's head down, and, stooping over the cliff, wet her handkerchief in the rill, and, returning, bathed the white face with one hand while she unfastened the bosom of the lifeless woman's dress with the other.

As she did so her hand came in contact with something hard, though for a second or two she was too intent upon watching for some signs of returning consciousness in the face on her knee to look to see what it was; but presently her eye caught a plain gold locket.

"Poor girl!" she thought. "It is the gift of the man who has deserted her. And she wears it near her heart. Poor girl, poor girl!"

At that moment the white lips parted, and the dark eyes opened.

"Yorke!" she breathed. "Is it you, Yorke? Have you come back to me?"

The words struck upon Leslie's ear at first without any significance. She scarcely heard them or took them in for a space during which one could have counted fifty.

Then, gradually it came upon her, gradually, slowly.

"Yorke! Is it you, Yorke? Have you come back to me?"

She repeated them mechanically, as one repeats a phrase in a foreign language, the meaning of which one does not understand. Then she began to tremble, and a faint, sick dread fell upon her.

All the time she bathed the white face and lips and brushed the dark hair from the low, handsome forehead; doing it mechanically, absently.

Yorke? Had this girl said Yorke, or, was she mistaken?

She waited, breathless, the sick feeling weighing on her heart; and presently the full lips opened again, and again the name—the beloved name—was breathed. There could be no mistake this time. Leslie heard it plainly.

It was Yorke.

Her hand trembled, the beautiful face on her lap grew dim, and seemed to fade away. Then she made an effort and forced the dread from her heart, and a smile to her lips.

What if this girl, the beautiful girl, had called upon Yorke? Surely there was more than one man of that name in the world, the great big wide world; and this woman's Yorke was not, could not be, hers, Leslie's.

She could have laughed at her wicked, worse than wicked, foolish fears! Could have laughed if it had not been for the stress of circumstances.

How could she suspect for a moment that he Yorke—the Duke of Rothbury, her lover, so good and true and stanch—should be the Yorke whom this woman loved, and who had, by her own account, deserted her!

"Oh, I wrong him cruelly, wickedly, even by this momentary doubt!" she told herself. "He would not have doubted me as I have done him, though only for a second!" And her face flushed.

But though she reproached herself, her mind was at work, and, against her will, she remembered how she had first seen this girl.

She recalled the scene, the incident, at St. Martin's Tower. Yorke had stood beside her looking down, and he had started—yes, and turned pale, white to the lips, as the woman's voice had floated up to them.

Did he know her?

All her being rose in revolt at the idea, the suspicion. And yet——. She remembered his face as it had looked at that moment. She had thought that he had turned pale with anger that such a song should have been sung in her presence, and had loved him for his anxiety on her account.

She tried to thrust the dawning suspicion from her as if it were some insidious demon whispering in her ear, but still she could not forget that this woman had told her that she had come down here to Portmaris, had followed the man she loved to this place; and Yorke had come down here, had come down——!

The rays of the setting sun struck the two figures, the white face lying on Leslie's lap adding a lustre to the dark hair that swept across Leslie's dress.

How beautiful she looked, Leslie thought in a dull, vague way; how beautiful! Any man might well lose his heart to such a woman, even though she were not a lady, and capable of singing such a song as she had heard these lips sing. Any man, even——. No, not Yorke! He would not, could not have loved her. It was she, Leslie herself, whom he loved, not this woman!

Even as she laid the flattering unction to her soul, her eye fell again upon the locket.

It was lying open, face downward, upon the woman's snow-white breast.

A desire, an overwhelming desire to take it up and see what face was enshrined in it seized upon her. One glance, and this vague, unjust suspicion of hers would be set at rest for ever. She knew, knew, that it would not be Yorke's, her Yorke's, face she should see.

She fought against the desire, the craving. Love was a sacred thing to her, and it would seem like sacrilege to touch this trinket which this poor girl wore, doubtless the gift of the man she loved so dearly, the man whose desertion had caused her to weary of life, to desire death.

"No, no, I cannot, I will not!" Leslie breathed pantingly, but even as she spoke the words her hand stole towards the locket upon which the rich sunlight was falling. Once, twice, her hand approached it and drew back, but at the third time she took it up, raised it slowly, and then swiftly turned it upwards.

Then still holding it, her eyes riveted upon it with a gaze of horror and agony, she cried—

"Yorke! It is Yorke!"

CHAPTER XXI.

"IT IS FALSE—I WILL NOT BELIEVE IT."

It was Yorke!

Leslie gazed down at the locket lying in the palm of her hand, for the moment too benumbed by the sudden shock to feel anything.

Yes, it was his face, the handsome face whose every line, every expression, were engraved on her heart. For a second or two the portrait, as it smiled up at her with Yorke's characteristic devil-may-care look in its eyes, gave her a kind of pleasure; then she began to realize where she had found it, lying on the bosom of this woman!

She dropped the locket as if it had suddenly burnt her, and shrank back as far as she could without displacing the woman's head from her knee.

Yorke's portrait in a locket in the possession of another woman! How could it be! There must be some mistake, some hideous mistake. It could not be his face, but that of someone, some relation closely resembling him.

She took the locket up again, and as she did so remembered that the woman had murmured Yorke's name. Yes, it was Yorke. She laid the locket down again—gently this time—and bent over the white face of the woman with a strange confusing throbbing in her heart, a loud singing in her ears. The earth seemed to rock beneath her, the sky to be falling.

She was faint with physical exhaustion, with the terrible struggle for life, and this discovery coming so closely upon all she had endured almost crushed her.

Was she really awake, or asleep and dreaming? Delirious, perhaps? Yorke, her Yorke's face lying there on this woman's heart! It was incredible.

All this had passed through her mind, her heart, in a few seconds; one can crowd an awful amount of misery, anguish, joy, into a minute; and by this time the woman had recovered.

"Where am I?" she breathed, staring up at Leslie.

Leslie did not answer, but continued to gaze at her with wide open eyes, in which a horror was growing more intense each moment.

"Where am I? Have I been ill—ah——." She drew a deep breath. "I remember. Are we safe? Why don't we go? What are we staying for?"

She raised herself on her elbow, and half sat up, pushing the black hair from her face and passing her hand across her eyes. Then she looked down and saw the locket, and her hand flew to it.

Leslie's eyes followed the hand.

"Whose—whose portrait is that?" she asked almost inaudibly.

The woman looked at her, and a dull red stole into her face.

"What's that to you?" she retorted, half defiantly. "You've looked at it, haven't you?"

Leslie moistened her lips; they were so hot and dry that she could scarcely speak.

"Yes, I have looked at it," she said. "I know——."

"You know who it is?" As she spoke she closed the locket hurriedly, and buttoned her dress over it. "You know—. Who are you? What is your name?" And the dark eyes scanned Leslie's pale face with suspicious scrutiny.

"My name is Leslie, Leslie Lisle," said Leslie slowly.

"Leslie—," the woman sprang to her feet. "What! You are the girl he left me for," she breathed.

Leslie shuddered and her lips quivered.

"Oh, there must be some mistake!" she almost wailed. "It cannot be he— And yet you spoke his name—Yorke——."

"Yorke! Yes, that's his name! And this is his portrait," was the sharp response. "And you are the girl he's fallen in love with! And I never guessed it! I must have been a fool not to have thought of it, jumped at it! It's lucky for you that I didn't," she added between her teeth. "I'd have killed you down there!"

Leslie shrank back, and instinctively put out her hand as if to ward off an attack.

"What—what is your name?" she asked.

"My name?" The full lips curled with bitter contempt. "You must have been out of the world not to know it," she said. "My name's Finetta; I'm Finetta of the Diadem."

"Finetta—Finetta of the Diadem," Leslie repeated mechanically.

Was it all a hideous dream? Who was Finetta of the Diadem? And how could she talk of Yorke as if he belonged to her—how did it happen that she wore his portrait on her heart?

"Yes, Finetta of the Diadem," said Finetta defiantly. "I should have thought everybody knew me. But I suppose he hasn't told you about me. No, that wasn't likely!" and she laughed hoarsely. "What are you staring at me like that for, as if I was a—a wild animal?"

Leslie put her hand to her brow with a piteous little gesture.

"I—I——. It is all so sudden. Give me time. I do not wish to anger you. I only want to ask you a—a question—one or two questions. Why do you wear that portrait in that locket?"

Finetta looked at her a moment in silence, then with a flash of her eyes and a discordant laugh she replied—

"That's a question to ask me, if you like. What do you think I wear it for?" The red deepened on her face, then left it pale. "What does a woman usually wear a man's portrait for? I'll be bound you've got one of his, too?"

Leslie's hand went to her bosom, to the sparkling pendant, and she shook her head with a strange feeling of injury; he had sent her diamonds, but he had given this woman something far more precious!

"No!" she breathed almost unconsciously. "Did he give it to you? Oh, answer me quickly, and—and truthfully! I will tell you why I ask. I will tell you all. I—I am to be his wife—I was to be his wife——."

At the change from "Am to be" to "was to be" Finetta's eyes flashed, and she lowered her lids.

"Sit down," she said, pointing to a piece of rock.

Leslie sank down upon it, and waited with averted face; she could not bear to look upon the dark defiant face, beautiful with the beauty of a fallen angel at this moment, a face distorted and lined by conflicting passions.

"You were to be his wife, were you?" said Finetta slowly, with a breath between each word. "So was I!"

"You!"

The word dropped from Leslie's white lips unconsciously; it seemed to sting Finetta.

"Yes, me!" she flamed out. "Why not? You speak and you look at me as if—as if I was some monster! I'm—I'm as young and as good looking as you——."

Leslie put up her hand deprecatingly.

"Yes, yes," she murmured. "I did not mean to anger you. Go on! Oh, go on!"

"Why shouldn't he marry me as much as you!" continued Finetta. "I've known him longer than you have! I've been more to him than you have——."

Leslie shuddered.

"I'm as good as you are. Who are you? You're no more of a swell than I am! And you're poor, too, ain't you? And I'm not poor. I can earn thousands a year——." She stopped, panting.

Leslie glanced at her shrinkingly.

"And if it comes to caring for him, I reckon I care for him quite as much as you do! You know that, for you heard me talk down there, when I thought it was all over with us. And as for him—well, I'd wager everything I've got that in his heart he likes me as well as he likes you, or anyone else!"

She laughed bitterly, and with self scorn and contempt.

"No, no," broke from Leslie's quivering lips.

"But I say yes, yes," retorted Finetta. "He's just like the rest. None of 'em could stick to one of us alone to save his life. You must have lived with your head buried in the sand not to know that! What! You think that you're the only one he has made love to; or that I'm the only other one!" She laughed again. "Ask him whether he knows Lady Eleanor Dallas! See how he looks when he hears her name, and hear what he says!"

Leslie looked at her with half dazed eyes, and listened with ears in which the wild sea seemed roaring.

"It is false, false!" she cried hoarsely. "I will not believe——." And she put up her hands as if to cover her ears.

Finetta laughed.

"Well!" she said with a sneer. "He's deceived you easily enough, anyone could see! And if I wasn't so sorry for myself I could find it in my heart to be sorry for you!"

Leslie shuddered. To be pitied by this woman, this terrible woman!

"Look here," said Finetta after a pause. "Don't mind my hard words; it's my way, when I'm put out. I can see you don't believe half I say, and that's only natural; I shouldn't if I were in your place, and didn't know him so well. If you doubt that we are both talking of the same man, take this locket and look at it again." And she held it out.

Leslie turned her head from it.

"No, you don't want to look at it again. I daresay you knew his face directly you saw it. Now, do you think he'd have given it to me if he hadn't cared for me? Answer that!"

Leslie looked at her, a sudden wild hope springing into her bosom.

"It—it was a long while ago!" she breathed, "a long while ago——."

Finetta broke in with a discordant laugh.

"Not a bit of it! It was three days ago. He sent it after spending an evening with me, as he's spent many a score——."

She saw a look of unbelief crossing Leslie's face, and, snatching a letter from her pocket, thrust it under Leslie's face.

"Read that, and believe!" she said.

Leslie took the note and looked at it. The lines swam before her eyes, but she saw a word here and there, and with a low cry, which broke from her notwithstanding all the efforts to suppress it, she held out the note from her.

Finetta took it and restored it to her pocket, then stood and looked down at the motionless figure in silence for a moment or two.

"You believe now," she said in a low, harsh voice. "You see I am telling you the truth, and not a pack of lies. And now, what are you going to do? Wait a minute. Let's see how the land lies. Here am I who've—who've cared for him for years, who would have been his wife if—if he hadn't happened to have seen you; and, mind, I'm just as fit to be his wife as you are. Why, come to that, he'll tire of you ever so much sooner than he would of me, because you haven't any money and I have, and can go on earning enough to keep him amused. Don't you see? We've been fond of each other for ever so long. Why, there's been scarcely a day for months past that we haven't been together! And even when he's smitten by you he doesn't throw me over, you see. He sends me his portrait and a sweetheart's note with it; yes, and just after he's left you, too! Now, that's how I stand; and now, where are you? You've only known him a few days; you can't care for him half—half? no, not one-tenth as much as I do! That's only natural. And it's only natural and right that you should give him up. Think it over. After all, Miss Lisle," she went on, with a kind of sullen insinuation, "he's behaved very badly to you; he has indeed. He never meant to throw me quite over; he'd have come back to me sooner or later."

Leslie half rose from the rock and put out her hand as if to put the words, the insinuation, from her, then sank back and covered her face with her hands.

"He'd have come back to me, and then you'd have been a good deal worse off than you are now."

Leslie did not move, and Finetta, watching her closely, allowed a minute to pass in silence that her words might sink in.

"Come, now, Miss Lisle; there's no occasion for you and me to quarrel. Why, when you think of it, you and me have saved each other's lives, haven't we? And we ought, we really ought, to act square and straight by one another. I'm the one that's been badly treated, because he loved me first, and would have married me but for you. Just think of that! From what I've seen of you, I should say that you were a kind-hearted lady and one that wouldn't injure a fellow woman. I should say you were too proud to rob a poor girl of the man she's loved."

Leslie sprang up panting, and for a moment breathless.

The horror, the humiliation, were driving her mad.

"Oh, be silent, be silent! Let me think!" she breathed. "Every word you speak stabs me." She put her hand to her bosom with a passionate gesture that awed Finetta. "It is all so sudden that—that I cannot realize it; can scarcely believe—oh, do not speak! I believe all you say. You have shown me the note, the portrait is his, and I cannot but believe. And I trusted him! Ah, how I trusted him!" Her voice broke for a moment and her eyes swam with tears; but she dashed them away with her hand and hurried on, with every now and then a break between the words. "But what you say is true. He—he belongs to you more than to me! He has wronged us both; but he has wronged you the more cruelly. And—" she stopped and put her hand to her throat as if she were suffocating—"and I—I give him back to you. Yes, I give him back to you!"

The blood rushed to Finetta's face, then left it pale to the lips.

"You—you throw him up?" she said, as if she could scarcely believe her ears.

Leslie raised her head and looked at her steadily, with a look that would have melted the heart of anyone but a rival.

"He belongs to you, not to me," she said in a low voice, as if every word cost her a heart pang. "I—I will never see him again if I can help it. Do not—" she paused, and a sigh broke from her white lips—"do not let him know; do not tell him that I have seen you. I—I have loved him, and would spare him the shame——."

There was silence for a second, Finetta gazing on the ground with set face and hidden eyes.

"If—if he should ever know that we met, and that you told me what you have told me, tell him that I—yes, that I forgive him. That I have forgiven and forgotten him. That is all."

Her head sank for a moment, then she raised it again and looked at the dark face with a shrinking kind of reluctance.

"You—you say that you care for him?"

Finetta's lips moved.

"Yes, and I know that you do. Be good to him. Do not let the thought that he deceived himself into thinking he cared for me come between you. He must love you very much to give you his portrait, to write you that note; try—try and make him happy."

Her voice broke, and she turned her head away.

Finetta stood with clenched hands, her teeth gnawing at her under lip; then she sprang to Leslie's side and took her hand.

"Miss Lisle——."

Leslie shook her hand off with a little cry, a shudder.

"Don't—don't touch me, please."

Finetta froze instantly.

"I—I beg your pardon," panted Leslie. "But I cannot bear any more. If you would go now. That road leads to Portmaris."

She sank on the stone, and sat with her head erect and face set hard as the stone itself.

Finetta drew her jacket round her and fumbled with her gloves.

"I understand," she said in a low voice. "You've done the right thing, and you won't be sorry for it."

"It is nearly two miles to Portmaris," said Leslie in a dry, expressionless voice. "There is an evening train; you can catch it if you walk quickly."

"I'm going," said Finetta, biting her lips. "Good-by, Miss Leslie. I'm sorry—well, good-by."

Leslie sat motionless and with averted face until the graceful figure of the dancing girl of the Diadem had disappeared below the hill; then with a cry she rose, her arms above her head, and fell full length upon the turf.

CHAPTER XXII.

"FAME HAS COME TO ME AT LAST."

Leslie lay unconscious while the sun sank below the horizon, and the delicious summer gloaming came softly upon the moor; lay like a flower struck down by some rude hand, and the evening star shone pale in the sky before she came back to life and her great sorrow.

For a while it seemed to her that the whole scene through which she had passed was a hideous dream, and when its reality came crushing down upon her she uttered a low cry and shivered as if with cold. The sudden destruction of her joy and happiness left her stunned and bewildered. A few short hours ago and she and Yorke had been sitting hand in hand, heart to heart, talking of their marriage, and now——. Now he was hers no longer. In a sense he had never been hers, but all the time he had been wooing her, forcing her to love him, he had been in honor bound to this other woman.

As she thought of her, this Finetta, this woman with the bold eyes, a feeling of shame and humiliation was added to the misery of Leslie's loss. That he, Yorke, her idol, her king, should ever have stooped to love such a woman seemed to her unspeakably base and terrible. She had set him on so lofty a pedestal, had regarded him as so noble and high-minded, that the knowledge of his falseness—to both of them!—hurt her like a physical blow.

She sat for some time, waiting for strength to enable her to reach home; and as she sat and looked round it seemed as if something had gone out of her life, as if a weight which no power nor time could lift had fallen upon her heart.

Before her she saw stretching in a dull grey, hopeless vista, the many years she would probably have to live; the long life without Yorke, and haunted by the memory of these few happy days.

"If I had never seen him! If I had not loved him so dearly!" was the burden of her heart's wail; "or if I had only died down there before I saw the locket or heard the woman's story!"

She had fought Death hard enough a little while ago, now she would have welcomed him.

She rose at last, and went slowly and draggingly towards Portmaris. Her dress was still heavy with the salt water, she was weak with physical and mental weariness, and the two miles across the moor were surely the longest that ever woman journeyed.

When she reached the villa and entered the parlor, she found her father pacing up and down in the dusk before his easel.

He looked up, but fortunately for her, did not see her white weary face, or notice how she held the door as if to support herself.

"Where have you been, Leslie?" he asked in a kind of irritable excitement. "I have been wanting you. Mr. Temple has sent the notes for the picture, the fifty pounds."

She leant against the door, and drew a long breath as she thought of this added humiliation.

"He is going to-morrow, it seems, and wished to—er—pay for the picture before he left. His departure is rather sudden, I think, but I fancy he is erratic in his movements. I want you to send him a receipt, and—er—to ask him to allow the picture to be exhibited."

"Yes; to-morrow, papa," she said faintly.

"Why not to-night?" he asked testily.

"I—I am tired, very tired," she said, going to him and leaning her head on his shoulder.

"You've walked too far," he said in a tone of complaint. "You'd better go to bed at once. The receipt and the letter must wait till to-morrow, I suppose. Oh, there was something—oh, yes; did you see the duke? He came up to me on the beach and inquired for you."

She turned away from him, a lump rising in her throat and threatening to suffocate her.

"Yes."

"Did he say anything about that sketch of St. Martin's?"

St. Martin's! How the name brought back the memory of that happy, happy day.

"I don't quite know about that sketch," he went on with an air of importance. "I may be too much engaged on important pictures to—er—spare any time for small sketches. However, that matter can rest for the present. The duke has gone back to London to-night, they tell me. By the way, I wish you would prepare a fresh canvas for me."

"Not to-night, oh, not to-night, dear!" she said in a low voice. "I will go to bed as you said, for I am very, very tired. To-morrow——."

She left the sentence unfinished, and crept up to her own room.

To-morrow! What an awful line of dreary to-morrows stretched before her, was her thought. As she took off her dress the diamond pendant flashed in the candlelight, each gem seeming to glitter mockingly in derision of her love and faith and trust. She covered the sparkling thing with her hand and bowed her head over it. The very day he had sent it to her, he had given his portrait—his portrait—to that other woman! She took the pendant off the ribbon, and wrapped it in a piece of soft paper and put it away out of sight in a small box, and as she did so she saw Ralph Duncombe's ring.

One's own misery recalls to us that of other people, and in this the hour of her trouble Leslie remembered Ralph Duncombe, and for the first time she realized something of what he had suffered. With a rush his passionate avowal came back upon her, and she took the ring in her hand and looked at it with a double misery. He had sworn to help her if she ever should be in trouble, had sworn to help her if ever she suffered wrong. How feeble had been his vow! Neither he nor anyone else could help her in this strait; and as to vengeance, she wanted none. Alas, alas! false as he had been, she loved Yorke still.

She fell asleep at last from sheer exhaustion, and did not awake until past nine. Then it all came throbbing, crowding back upon her, in that first awful moment of waking. Surely to the wretched and unhappy, there is no more awful hour in the twenty-four than that which follows the morning awakening. Sorrow seems to have had time to sharpen her arrows during the night, and plunges them with fresh vigor into our aching hearts.

While she was dressing, Leslie went over the whole of the incidents of the previous day, bit by bit, and suddenly, with the sharpness of a flash of lightning, a gleam of hope shot across the darkness of her misery. Suppose this woman had lied! Such women as she would find no difficulty in stooping to untruth and deception. Suppose she had got possession of Yorke's portrait, had forged the letter, had concocted the whole story? The supposition seemed far-fetched and improbable, but it sent a thrill of hope through her, and she finished dressing with feverish haste, and hurried downstairs.

All through the breakfast she felt like one in a dream, as if she were suspended between life and death, and waiting for the verdict. Her father talked of his picture, of all he meant to do, now that he was on the high road to Fame, and his voice sounded in her ears like that of someone speaking afar off.

Yorke, her Yorke, might prove to be hers still! Oh, blessed hope. How mad, how wicked, how foolish she had been to put any trust in the woman who had slandered him!

The revulsion of feeling was so great that it sent a hectic flush to her face, and a feverish light to her eyes.

"That receipt and note, Leslie," said her father. "Tell Mr. Temple that I would rather not sell the picture, that I would rather return his money than forego the right of exhibiting the picture."

"Yes, yes, papa," she said at random. "Yes, it will all come right. It was wicked, foolish, to doubt him, to believe her."

He stared at her with irritable impatience.

"What are you talking of, Leslie?" he said peevishly. "You seem very strange this morning, and so you were last night."

"I know, I know, dear!" she broke in with something between a sigh and a sob. "Don't mind me. I am not very well. You want the receipt?" she sprang to the writing table. "There it is, and the note. Yes, yes! It will come right. I know it will; and—and—oh, how hot it is! I must have air, air!"

She caught up her hat, and with the receipt and note in her hand, ran to the door.

"I shall see Mr. Temple, papa, and I will give him these."

"And tell him," he called after her, "that I make it a condition that the picture shall be exhibited; mind that, Leslie!"

"Yes, yes!" she responded, and ran out.

She drew her breath hard as she paused for a moment on the doorstep, then she hurried to the quay.

A fisherman was drying his net in the sun, but there was no one else there, and she walked up and down, the note in her hand, repeating to herself the formula of hope; the woman, Finetta, had lied to her and deceived her. All would be well. Yorke would be her Yorke still!

She had not been walking thus very long before the bath chair, wheeled by Grey, was seen coming on to the quay.

She hurried toward it, and the duke motioned to Grey to stop.