clearly, Hedges?" asked Lord
Hartledon of his butler.

"It wasn't me worded it at all, my lord. Lady Kirton went to the station
herself. She informed me she had sent it in my name."

"Has Hillary told you privately what the surgeons think of the case?"

"Better of it than they did at first, my lord. They are trying to save
the leg."

This Captain Kirton was really the best of the Kirton bunch: a quiet,
unassuming young man, somewhat delicate in health. Lord Hartledon was
grieved for his accident, and helped to nurse him with the best heart
in the world.

And now what devilry (there were people in Calne who called it nothing
less) the old countess-dowager set afloat to secure her ends I am unable
to tell you. She was a perfectly unscrupulous woman--poverty had rendered
her wits keen; and her captured lion was only feebly struggling to escape
from the net. He was to blame also. Thrown again into the society of
Maude and her beauty, Val basked in its sunshine, and went drifting down
the stream, never heeding where the current led him. One day the
countess-dowager put it upon his honour--he must marry Maude. He might
have held out longer but for a letter that came from some friend of the
dowager's opportunely located at Cannes; a letter that spoke of the
approaching marriage of Miss Ashton to Colonel Barnaby, eldest son of a
wealthy old baronet, who was sojourning there with his mother. No doubt
was implied or expressed; the marriage was set forth as an assured fact.

"And I believe you meant to wait for her?" said the countess-dowager, as
she put the letter into his hand, with a little laugh. "You are free now
for my darling Maude."

"This may not be true," observed Lord Hartledon, with compressed lips.
"Every one knows what this sort of gossip is worth."

"I happen to know that it is true," spoke Lady Kirton, in a whisper. "I
have known of it for some time past, but would not vex you with it."

Well, she convinced him; and from that moment had it all her own way, and
carried out her plots and plans according to her own crafty fancy. Lord
Hartledon yielded; for the ascendency of Maude was strong upon him. And
yet--and yet--whilst he gave all sorts of hard names to Anne Ashton's
perfidy, lying down deep in his heart was a suspicion that the news was
not true. How he hated himself for his wicked assumption of belief in
after-years!

"You will be free as air," said the dowager, joyously. "You and Maude
shall get