eeling in the fern and crying.

_II.--A Peer in Difficulties_

The Lady Ella slipped an arm about her father's neck.

"You are in trouble, dear," she said. "Can I help you?"

"No," said the poor nobleman. "There's no help for it, Beggs says, and
they'll have to cut down the timber in the park. Poverty, my dear,
poverty."

This was a blow, and a heavy one.

"That isn't the worst of it," said Windgall, after a pause. "I am in the
hands of the Jews. A wretched Hebrew fellow says he _will_ have a
thousand pounds by this day week. He might as well ask me for a
million."

"The diamonds are worth more than a thousand pounds, dear," she said
gently.

"No, no, my darling," he answered. "I have robbed you of everything
already."

"You must take them, papa," she said in tender decision. She left him,
only to return in a few minutes' time with a dark shagreen case in her
hands. The earl paced about the room for a minute or two.

"I take these," he said at last, "in bitter unwillingness, because I
can't help taking them, my dear. I had best get the business over, Ella.
I will go up to town this afternoon."

During the whole of his journey the overdressed figure of Kimberley
seemed to stand before the embarrassed man, and a voice seemed to issue
from it. "Catch me, flatter me, wheedle me, marry me to one of your
daughters, and see the end of your woes." He despised himself heartily
for permitting the idea to enter his mind, but he could not struggle
against its intrusion.

Next day Kimberley entered his jewellers to consult him concerning a
scarf-pin. It was a bull-dog's head, carved in lava, and not quite
life-size. The eyes were rubies, the collar was of gold and brilliants.
This egregious jewel was of his own designing, and was of a piece with
his general notions of how a millionaire should attire himself.

As he passed through the door somebody leapt from a cab carrying
something in his hands, and jostled against him. He turned round
apologetically, and confronted the Earl of Windgall.

His lordship looked like a man detected in a theft, and shook hands with
a confused tremor.

"Can you spare me half an hour?" he asked. Then he handed the package to
the shop-man. "Take care of that," he stammered. "It is valuable. I will
call to-morrow."

That afternoon Kimberley accepted an invitation to stay at Shouldershott
Castle.

He was prodigiously flattered and fluttered. When he thought of being
beneath the sa