dinner here. Captain and Miss Ratcliffe were here too--and my
brother."

"Oh, ah! I remember now. Quite an amusing evening, was it not?"
Hunt-Goring laughed gently. "You were rather vexed with me for chaffing
her about her engagement. I have always thought a little chaff was
legitimate on such occasions."

"When it isn't objectionable," said Noel gruffly.

Hunt-Goring laughed again. "Do you know why the engagement was broken
off?"

Noel drew himself up sharply. "That, sir, is neither your affair nor
mine."

Hunt-Goring took out his cigarette-case. "Well, it was mine in a way,"
he observed complacently. "I pulled the strings, you know."

"Ah!" It was an exclamation of anger rather than of surprise. The blood
mounted in a great wave to Noel's forehead. He looked suddenly
dangerous. "I guessed it was your doing," he said, in a furious
undertone.

Hunt-Goring continued to smile. "He wasn't a very suitable _parti_ for
her, my dear fellow. There was a certain episode in his past that
wouldn't bear too close an investigation. Very possibly you have not
been let into that secret. Your brother was not over-anxious to have it
noised abroad."

Noel's hands were clenched. He seemed to be restraining himself from a
violent outburst with immense difficulty.

"My brother," he said with emphasis, "is the gentleman of our family. He
has never yet done anything that couldn't have been proclaimed from the
house-tops."

Hunt-Goring uttered his sneering laugh. "What touching loyalty! My dear
fellow, your brother is the biggest blackguard of you all, if you only
knew it."

"You lie!" Violently came the words; they were as the sudden bursting of
the storm. Something electric seemed suddenly to have entered into Noel.
He became as it were galvanized by fury.

But still Hunt-Goring laughed. "Oh, not on this occasion, I assure you.
I have too little at stake. I wonder why you imagined the engagement was
broken off. I suppose your brother gave you a reason of sorts."

Noel's eyes shone red. "He gave me to understand that you had had a hand
in it. I guessed it in fact. I knew what an infernal blackguard you
were."

"Order! Order!" smiled Hunt-Goring. "After all, my share in the matter
was a very small one. Most men have a past, you know. When you have
lived a little longer, you will recognize that. So he didn't tell you
why he had been thrown over? Left you to make your own inferences, I
suppose? Or perhaps she made the flatte