lish friends.

And the hostess smiles equally graciously to all: she is ready with a
bright word of welcome for everybody now, just as she will be anon with
a mute look of farewell, when--at ten o'clock--by Wellington's commands,
one by one, one officer after another will slip out of this hospitable
house, out into the rainy night, for a hurried visit to lodgings or
barracks to collect a few necessaries, and then to work--to horse or
march--to form into the ranks of battle as they had formed for the
quadrille--squares to face the enemy--advance, deploy as they had done
in the mazes of the dance! to fight as they had danced! to give their
life as they had given a kiss.

Bobby Clyffurde only saw Crystal de Cambray from afar. He had his
commission in Colin Halkett's brigade; his orders were the same as those
of many others to-night: to put in an appearance at Her Grace's ball, to
dispel any fears that might be confided to him through a fair partner's
lips: to show confidence, courage and gaiety, and at ten o'clock to
report for duty.

But the crowd in the ball-room was great, and Crystal de Cambray was the
centre of a very close and exclusive little crowd, as indeed were all
the ladies of the old French noblesse, who were here in their numbers.
They had left their country in the wake of their dethroned king and
despite the anxieties and sorrows of the past three months, while the
star of the Corsican adventurer seemed to shine with renewed splendour,
and that of the unfortunate King of France to be more and more on the
wane, they had somehow filled the sleepy towns of Belgium--Ghent,
Brussels, Charleroi--with the atmosphere of their own elegance and their
unimpeachable good taste.

Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with
his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his
cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with
many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate
entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or
Crystal again.

He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and
fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back
again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was
expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now.

And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what
you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and