he kept his journey a secret?
Tregear he knew was engaged to his sister;--but for all that, there
was a closer intimacy between Mabel and Tregear than between Mabel
and himself. And surely she might have taken his ring!

And then Isabel Boncassen was so perfect! Since he had first met her
he had heard her loveliness talked of on all sides. It seemed to be
admitted everywhere that so beautiful a creature had never before
been seen in London. There is even a certain dignity attached to that
which is praised by all lips. Miss Boncassen as an American girl, had
she been judged to be beautiful only by his own eyes, might perhaps
have seemed to him to be beneath his serious notice. In such a case
he might have felt himself unable to justify so extraordinary a
choice. But there was an acclamation of assent as to this girl! Then
came the dancing,--the one dance after another; the pressure of the
hand, the entreaty that she would not, just on this occasion, dance
with any other man, the attendance on her when she took her glass
of wine, the whispered encouragement of Mrs. Montacute Jones, the
half-resisting and yet half-yielding conduct of the girl. "I shall
not dance at all again," she said when he asked her to stand up for
another. "Think of all that lawn-tennis this morning."

"But you will play to-morrow?"

"I thought you were going."

"Of course I shall stay now," he said, and as he said it he put his
hand on her hand, which was on his arm. She drew it away at once. "I
love you so dearly," he whispered to her; "so dearly."

"Lord Silverbridge!"

"I do. I do. Can you say that you will love me in return?"

"I cannot," she said slowly. "I have never dreamed of such a thing. I
hardly know now whether you are in earnest."

"Indeed, indeed I am."

"Then I will say good-night, and think about it. Everybody is going.
We will have our game to-morrow at any rate."

When he went to his room he found the ring on his dressing-table.

CHAPTER XL

"And Then!"

On the next morning Miss Boncassen did not appear at breakfast. Word
came that she had been so fatigued by the lawn-tennis as not to be
able to leave her bed. "I have been to her," said Mrs. Montacute
Jones, whispering to Lord Silverbridge, as though he were
particularly interested. "There's nothing really the matter. She will
be down to lunch."

"I was afraid she might be ill," said Silverbridge, who was now
hardly anxious to hide his admiration.

"Oh n