e would quite suit Guy. I don't know any one
who would exactly. By-the-by, was there not a strong flirtation with a
Miss Bellasys?"

"Yes; so strong that I should have been less surprised to have seen her
name in this letter."

"Then he has not got out of that scrape yet," Mohun observed. "That girl
comes of the wrong stock to give up any thing she has fancied without a
struggle. I knew her father, Dick Bellasys, well. He contrived to
compress as much mischief into his five-and-thirty years, before De
Launy shot him, as most strong men can manage in double the time. He was
like the Visconti--never sparing man in his anger, or woman in his
love."

I felt that he was right. I did not fancy the idea of Flora's state of
mind when she heard that all her fascinations had failed, and that her
rival had won the day.

"I think I must leave you sooner than I had intended," I said; "I
should like to be in England to see how things are going on."

"You are right," answered Ralph, "though I shall be sorry to lose you.
You have some influence with Livingstone, I know, though he is so hard
to guide and self-reliant that advice is almost useless. If I had to
give you a _consigne_, it would be--Distrust. If Miss Bellasys seems to
take things pleasantly, be still more wary. I never saw a peculiarly
frank, winning smile on her father's face without there being ruin to
some one in the background. After all, you can do but little, I suppose.
_Che sara, sara_." He said this drearily, and with something like a
sigh.

I had some business which detained me in Dublin, and it was nearly a
fortnight after I received Guy's letter before I reached London.

Early on the morning after my arrival I went down to his lodgings in
Piccadilly. I found him at breakfast; after the first greetings, before
I could say one word about his own affairs, he began to speak eagerly.

"What a pity you should have come too late for the catastrophe, when you
had seen all the preface! Five days ago Bella and Charley made their
great _coup_, and were married in Paris."

"And Bruce?" I said, recovering from the intelligence, which was not so
unexpected, after all.

"Ah! Bruce"--Guy replied; "I should be very glad if I knew what he _was_
doing at this moment. I have been expecting him every day; but nothing
has been heard of him since he left my mother's presence in a rabid
state of fury. Did I tell you it was from Kerton they fled? I thought
he must have come t