ry--fire--earthquake--made me start and tremble at all sorts of
inopportune moments.

I kept faith with Leta, and reluctantly produced my beautiful rubies on
the night of her dinner party. Emerging from my room I came full upon
Lady Carwitchet in the corridor. She was dressed for dinner, and at her
throat I caught the blue gleam of the great sapphire. Leta had kept
faith with me. I don't know what I stammered in reply to her ladyship's
remarks; my whole soul was absorbed in the contemplation of the
intoxicating loveliness of the gem. _That_ a Palais Royal deception!
Incredible! My fingers twitched, my breath came short and fierce with
the lust of possession. She must have seen the covetous glare in my
eyes. A look of gratified spiteful complacency overspread her features,
as she swept on ahead and descended the stairs before me. I followed her
to the drawing-room door. She stopped suddenly, and murmuring something
unintelligible hurried back again.

Everybody was assembled there that I expected to see, with an addition.
Not a welcome one by the look on Tom's face. He stood on the hearth-rug
conversing with a great hulking, high-shouldered fellow, sallow-faced,
with a heavy moustache and drooping eyelids, from the corners of which
flashed out a sudden suspicious look as I approached, which lighted up
into a greedy one as it rested on my rubies, and seemed unaccountably
familiar to me, till Lady Carwitchet tripping past me exclaimed:

"He has come at last! My naughty, naughty boy! Mr. Acton, this is my
son, Lord Carwitchet!"

I broke off short in the midst of my polite acknowledgments to stare
blankly at her. The sapphire was gone! A great gilt cross, with a Scotch
pebble like an acid drop, was her sole decoration.

"I had to put my pendant away," she explained confidentially; "the clasp
had got broken somehow." I didn't believe a word.

Lord Carwitchet contributed little to the general entertainment at
dinner, but fell into confidential talk with Mrs. Duberly-Parker. I
caught a few unintelligible remarks across the table. They referred, I
subsequently discovered, to the lady's little book on Northchurch races,
and I recollected that the Spring Meeting was on, and to-morrow "Cup
Day." After dinner there was great talk about getting up a party to go
on General Fairford's drag. Lady Carwitchet was in ecstasies and tried
to coax me into joining. Leta declined positively. Tom accepted sulkily.

The look in Lord Carwitc