wo
went. Lord Ronsdale had greeted John Steele perfunctorily; the other's
manner was likewise mechanically courteous. It could not very well have
been otherwise; a number of people were near.

"Come down for a little sport?" the nobleman, his hands carelessly
thrust into the pockets of his shooting trousers, had asked with a
frosty smile.

"Perhaps--if there is any!" Steele allowed his glance for the fraction
of a moment to linger on Lord Ronsdale's face.

"I'll answer for that." A slight pause ensued. "Decided rather suddenly
to run down, didn't you?"

"Rather."

"Heard you were on the continent. From Sir Charles, don't you know.
Pleasant time, I trust?" he drawled.

"Thank you!" John Steele did not answer directly. "Your solicitude," he
laughed, "honors me--my Lord!"

And that had been all, all the words spoken, at least. To the others
there had been nothing beneath the surface between them; for the time
the two men constituted but two figures in a social gathering.

A rainy spell put a stop to outdoor diversions; for twenty-four hours
now the party had been thrown upon their own resources, to devise such
indoor amusement as occurred to them. Strathorn House, however, was
large; it had its concert stage, a modern innovation; its armory hall
and its ball-room. Pleasure seekers could and did find here ample
facilities for entertaining themselves.

The second morning of the dark weather discovered two of the guests in
the oak-paneled smoking-room of Strathorn House. One of them brushed the
ash from his cigar meditatively and then stretched himself more
comfortably in the great leather chair.

"No fox-hunt or fishing for any of us to-day," he remarked with a yawn.

The other, who had been gazing through a window at a prospect of
dripping leaves and leaden sky, answered absently; then his attention
centered itself on the small figure of a boy coming up through the
avenue of trees toward a side entrance.

"Believe I shall run over to Germany very soon, Steele," went on the
first speaker.

"Indeed?" John Steele's brows drew together; the appearance of the lad
was vaguely familiar. He remembered him now, the hostler boy at the
Golden Lion.

"Yes; capital case coming on in the criminal courts there."

"And you don't want to miss it, Forsythe?"

"Not I! Weakness of mine, as you know. Most people look to novels or
plays for entertainment; I find mine in the real drama, unfolded every
day in the courts of ju