en are, and what a bore falling in love is! And I liked
him, too, better than any of them, and thought we were going to be
brothers in arms--Damon and--what's his name?--and all that sort of
thing! It's of no use my ever hoping for a friend. I shall never have
one in this lower world, for just so sure as I get to like a person,
that person must go and fall in love with me, and then we quarrel and
part. It's hard."

Miss Hunsden sighed deeply, and went into the house. And Sir Everard
rode home as if the fiend was after him--like a man gone mad--flung the
reins of the foaming horse to the astounded groom, rushed up to his
room and locked himself in, and declined his luncheon and his dinner.

When he came down to breakfast next morning, with a white, wild face,
and livid rings round his eyes, he electrified the family by his abrupt
announcement:

"I start for Constantinople to-morrow. From thence I shall make a tour
of the East. I will not return to England for the next three years."

CHAPTER XIII.

LYING IN BRITHLOW WOOD.

A thunderbolt falling at your feet from a cloudless summer sky must be
rather astounding in its unexpectedness, but no thunderbolt ever
created half the consternation Sir Everard's fierce announcement did.

"Going away!" his mother murmured--"going to Constantinople. My dear
Everard, you don't mean it?"

"Don't I?" he said, fiercely. "Don't I look as if I meant it?"

"But what has happened? Oh, Everard, what does all this mean?"

"It means, mother, that I am a mad, desperate and reckless man; that I
don't care whether I ever return to England again or not."

Lady Kingsland's own imperious spirit began to rise. Her cheeks
flushed and her eyes flashed.

"It means you are a headstrong, selfish, cruel boy! You don't care an
iota what pain you inflict on others, if you are thwarted ever so
slightly yourself. I have indulged you from your childhood. You have
never known one unsatisfied wish it was in my power to gratify, and
this is my reward!"

He sat in sullen silence. He felt the reproach keenly in its simple
truth; but his heart was too sore, the pain too bitter, to let him
yield.

"You promise me obedience in the dearest wish of my heart," her
ladyship went on, heedless of the presence of Mildred and Sybilla, "and
you break that promise at the first sight of a wild young hoiden in a
hunting-field. It is on her account you frighten me to death in this
heartless mann