I
tell you what it is. I've been infernally badly treated. No use to
mince matters. I've been jilted, sir. Jilted!"

"I suppose I may gather from that," suggested Jimmy, striving to keep
anything resembling elation from his voice, "that, as far as you're
concerned, Bridget is free----"

"Free!" cried Colonel Faversham. "Any woman can easily be free who
attaches no value to her most solemn vows. Free! Good gracious! How
can a man bind such a wench?"

"Thank you," said Jimmy, turning towards the door, "that's all I wanted
to hear!"

His position did not appear very enviable, because while he could not
tolerate any abuse of Bridget, to tell the truth it was impossible to
say a word in her defence.

"One minute--one minute, Jimmy!" cried Colonel Faversham. "The more I
think of it, the more extraordinary this visit of yours seems! As a
boy you always had plenty of cheek! Between ourselves! You seem to
know a good deal. I hope to goodness you haven't blabbed to
Carrissima!"

"About your engagement, do you mean?"

"Yes, yes," said the colonel impatiently.

"I haven't said a word. In fact, she has not the remotest idea of
anything of the kind."

"Well, that's a blessing," was the answer, and Jimmy went away, getting
out of the house without seeing Carrissima again. The moment he
reached Upper Grosvenor Street he inquired for Sybil, and being told
she was in her own room, mounted the stairs several treads at a time.

"May I come in?" he asked, tapping at her door.

"Whatever is the matter now, Jimmy?" exclaimed Sybil, throwing it open.

"Well, it has been a wonderful morning," he explained. "I have got a
free hand. Bridget has thrown old Faversham over."

"My dear," said Sybil, "how extremely barefaced!"

"I have seen him," Jimmy continued. "There is nothing on earth in my
way. All I have to do is to find her, and that won't take many days."

While he stood outside Sybil's bedroom door, explaining how he had
heard the news of Bridget's departure from Golfney Place, his sister
underwent the sorest temptation of her life. Surely no situation could
be more tantalizing. If it were not for the solemn promise she had
made to Carrissima, how easy it would prove to keep Jimmy from the
pursuit which might end in his ruin!

Although he remained so strangely uninfluenced by the knowledge of
Bridget's engagement to Colonel Faversham, her simultaneous intrigue
with Mark Driver could scarcely fail to