ounger girl at the gallantry of a
younger man. In their previous friendship he had seldom drawn near her
except to shake her hand--a circumstance that had always recurred to her
when his free and familiar life had been the subject of gossip. But she
now had a more frightened consciousness that her nerves were strangely
responding to his powerful propinquity, and she involuntarily contracted
her pretty shoulders as he gently laid the cloak upon them. Yet even
when the act was completed, she had a superstitious instinct that the
significance of this rare courtesy was that it was final, and that
he had helped her to interpose something that shut him out from her
forever.

She was turning away with a heightened color, when the sound of light,
hurried footsteps, and the rustle of a woman's dress was heard in the
hall. A swift recollection of her companion's infelicitous reputation
now returned to her, and Grace Nevil, with a slight stiffening of her
whole frame, became coldly herself again. Mr. Rushbrook betrayed neither
surprise nor agitation. Begging her to wait a moment until he could
arrange for her to pass to her carriage unnoticed, he left the room.

Yet it seemed that the cause of the disturbance was unsuspected by Mr.
Rushbrook. Mr. Leyton, although left to the consolation of cigars and
liquors in the blue room, had become slightly weary of his companion's
prolonged absence. Satisfied in his mind that Rushbrook had joined
the gayer party, and that he was even now paying gallant court to the
Signora, he became again curious and uneasy. At last the unmistakable
sound of whispering voices in the passage got the better of his sense of
courtesy as a guest, and he rose from his seat, and slightly opened the
door. As he did so the figures of a man and woman, conversing in earnest
whispers, passed the opening. The man's arm was round the woman's
waist; the woman was--as he had suspected--the one who had stood in the
doorway, the Signora--but--the man was NOT Rushbrook. Mr. Leyton drew
back this time in unaffected horror. It was none other than Jack Somers!

Some warning instinct must at that moment have struck the woman, for
with a stifled cry she disengaged herself from Somers's arm, and dashed
rapidly down the hall. Somers, evidently unaware of the cause, stood
irresolute for a moment, and then more silently but swiftly disappeared
into a side corridor as if to intercept her. It was the rapid passage of
the Signora that