he height of friendship, hazarding
my best friends, my guineas, on his infallible fulfillment of duty;
and my full faith in him is received as an outrage."

"I suppose, sir," said L'Isle, turning on Bradshawe, with freezing
politeness, "it is you who have so obligingly afforded my volunteer
backer so singular an opportunity of proving his friendship?"

"I cannot claim the credit of it," answered Bradshawe, with easy
urbanity. "I am not even a stakeholder in the game; though, as a mere
looker-on, I confess having watched it with keen and growing
interest." And with a little wave of the hand he passed L'Isle gently
over to Lord Strathern.

L'Isle looked from the imperturbable colonel to the pacific major, who
professed to be so zealously his partisan, and back again to the
former. Not seeing how he could fasten a quarrel on either, he turned
somewhat reluctantly on Lord Strathern, who complacently awaited him.

"As for you, my lord, I might have felt surprise at your making me the
subject of such a bet, but it is lost in astonishment at the means you
took to win it!"

"And, after all to lose it," said Lord Strathern, in a mocking,
dolorous tone. "Is it not provoking?"

"No scruple," continued L'Isle, "seems to have stood in your way, my
lord, in the choice of either means or agent."

"On the contrary," said Lord Strathern, blandly, "I always
scrupulously choose the best of both."

"You must have contrived this plot," L'Isle persisted, "though the
chief actor be in Elvas. But I will say no more here."

"A few words more, I pray," said Lord Strathern, smiling. "I
understood that you were to have been detained in Elvas. How the devil
did you get away?"

L'Isle turned abruptly away, seeing that the more anger and
mortification he showed, the more gratified Lord Strathern seemed to
be. Rising from his seat, he walked up to Sir Rowland, who had been
watching him with much curiosity, and said: "I suppose, sir, you have
no further use for me here. If so, pray excuse my absence from your
table to-day, as I have occasion to return at once to Elvas."

Sir Rowland bid his secretary go and send off the despatch at once;
then looking fixedly at L'Isle, said: "I may need you here for a day
or two."

L'Isle bit his lip till the blood came, while Sir Rowland, stepping
over to Lord Strathern, asked in an undertone: "What is the matter
with L'Isle, my lord? he seems strangely out of humor."

"The truth is, Sir Rowland," sai