inly I will."

"I mean to be such friends with Mary. There is no woman I like so much.
And then circumstances have thrown us together, haven't they; and if
she and I are friends, real friends, I shall feel that our friendship
may be continued,--yours and mine. I don't mean that all this accident
shall go for nothing. I wasn't quite clever enough to contrive it; but
I am very glad of it, because it has brought us once more together, so
that we may understand each other. Good-bye, Lord George. Don't let me
keep you longer now. I wouldn't have Mary jealous, you know."

"I don't think there is the least fear of that," he said in real
displeasure.

"Don't take me up seriously for my little joke," she said as she put
out her left hand. He took it, and once more smiled, and then left her.

When she was alone there came a feeling on her that she had gone
through some hard work with only moderate success; and also a feeling
that the game was hardly worth the candle. She was not in the least in
love with the man, or capable of being in love with any man. In a
certain degree she was jealous, and felt that she owed Mary Lovelace a
turn for having so speedily won her own rejected lover. But her
jealousy was not strong enough for absolute malice. She had formed no
plot against the happiness of the husband and wife when she came into
the house; but the plot made itself, and she liked the excitement. He
was heavy,--certainly heavy; but he was very handsome, and a lord; and
then, too, it was much in her favour that he certainly had once loved
her dearly.

Lord George, as he went down to lunch, felt himself to be almost
guilty, and hardly did more than creep into the room where his wife and
sisters were seated.

"Have you been with Mrs. Houghton?" asked Lady Sarah in a firm voice.

"Yes, I have been sitting with her for the last half hour," he replied;
but he couldn't answer the question without hesitation in his manner.
Mary, however, thought nothing about it.

CHAPTER X.

THE DEAN AS A SPORTING MAN.

In Brotherton the Dean's performance in the run from Cross Hall Holt
was almost as much talked of as Mrs. Houghton's accident. There had
been rumours of things that he had done in the same line after taking
orders, when a young man,--of runs that he had ridden, and even of
visits which he had made to Newmarket and other wicked places. But, as
far as Brotherton knew, there had been nothing of all this since the
Dean had