ade me! I
haf not hydrophobia!"

Most unkindest cut of all, Lady Alicia went off into hysterical giggles.
For a moment her mother glared at the two young men in silence, and then
only remarking, "I have never been so insulted before," she went out, and
her daughter followed her.

As the door closed Mr Bunker went off into roar after roar of laughter,
but the humorous side of the situation seemed to appeal very slightly to
his injured friend.

"You rascal! you villain!" he shouted, "zis is ze end of our friendship,
Bonker! Do you use ze pistols? Tell me, sare!"

"My dear Baron," gasped Mr Bunker, "I could not put such an inartistic end
to so fine a joke for the world."

"You vill not fight? Coward! poltroon! I know not ze English name bad
enoff for you!"

With difficulty Mr Bunker composed himself and replied, still smiling:
"After all, Baron, what harm has been done? I get all the blame, and the
sympathy you wanted is sure to turn to you."

"False friend!" thundered the Baron.

"My dear Baron!" said Mr Bunker, mildly, "whose fault was it that the plot
miscarried? If you'd only left it all to me----"

"Left it to you! Yes, I left too moch to you! Traitor, it vas a trick to
vin ze Lady Alicia for yourself! Speak to me nevermore!" And with that the
infuriated nobleman rushed off to his own room.

As there was no further sign of him for the next half hour, Mr Bunker,
still smiling to himself at the recollection, went out to take the air;
but just as he was about to descend the stairs he spied Lady Alicia
lingering in a passage. He turned back and went up to her.

She began at once in a low, hurried voice that seemed to have a strain of
anger running beneath it.

"I got the two letters I wrote you returned to me to-day through the
dead-letter office. Nothing was known about you at the address you gave."

"I am not surprised," he replied.

"Then it was false?"

"As an address it was perfectly genuine, only it didn't happen to be
mine."

"Were you _ever_ in the Church?"

"Not to my personal knowledge."

"Yet you said you were?"

"I was in an asylum."

She looked up at him with fine contempt, while he smiled back at her with
great amusement.

"You have deceived _me_," she said, "and you have treated your other
friend--who is far too good for you--disgracefully. Have you anything to say
for yourself?"

"Not a word," he replied, cheerfully.

"You must _never_ treat me again as--as I let you."

As