th intense admiration into
her lovely, troubled face.

"Do you?" she murmured. "Oh, if you would only try to open my cousin's
eyes to his friend's falseness--I know he's false, but Adrien is so
blind."

It seemed as if he were blind in more than one direction; for at that
minute Leroy himself crossed the room, with an aspect that, in any other
man, would have been termed glum. The sight of the girl with whom he was
so rapidly falling in love, sitting in rapt conversation with Lord
Standon--even though that young man was his friend--had roused a strong
feeling of resentment within his heart. He restrained himself, however,
though it was in a rather cold, forced voice that he asked Lady
Constance if she would sing. She rose demurely enough; for his very
coldness and jealousy, slight as it was--careless as she knew it to
be--proved to her that the love she so ardently desired was awakening at
last.

The evening passed quietly. Adrien himself refused to sing, though he
stayed close by his cousin's side, and turned over the pages of her
music with such a devoted air that at last the ladies of the party began
to whisper knowingly amongst themselves.

Luckily for Adrien's peace of mind--for he loathed and dreaded scenes of
any description--Lady Merivale had not returned with the party to the
Castle, much as Miss Penelope had wished it. Eveline Merivale was only
too cognisant of what was passing between Lady Constance and her cousin;
and though she knew that Adrien and herself had merely played at love,
and greatly against his will, at that, still she was just as unwilling
to see him the devoted slave of another woman, who was younger, if not
more beautiful, than herself.

After the ladies had retired for; the night, Adrien gave himself up to
unaccustomed reverie. The tenor of his life had been changed. The inane
senseless round of dissipation had begun to tire him; the homage and
flattery cloyed on his palate. And now, with his newborn love for
Constance filling his heart and mind, had come the overwhelming failure
of his beloved horse, and the death of his jockey; the last causing him
more pain than the light-hearted companions around him would have
believed possible. Neither had the half-defined charge made against
Jasper escaped his notice, though he had disdained to make any mention
of it.

Shelton noticed his absent manner, as they smoked their last cigar
before going to bed.

"Counting up the losses, Adrien?" h