ine at
the _table d'hote_ of one of the hotels, or to feast sumptuously _a la
carte_, while on unlucky days they did not dine at all. Diana found a
roll and some cream cheese in a roomy old cupboard that was flavoured
with mice; and after making a very indifferent meal in the dusky
chamber, she went out upon the balcony, and sat there looking down upon
the lighted town.

She had been sitting there for nearly an hour in the same attitude,
when the door of the sitting-room was opened, and a footstep sounded
behind her. She knew the step; and although she did not lift her head,
her eyes took a new brightness in the summer dusk, and the listless
grace of her attitude changed to a statuesque rigidity, though there
was no change in the attitude itself.

She did not stir till a hand was laid softly on her shoulder, and a
voice said,--"Diana!"

The speaker was Valentine Hawkehurst, the young man whose entrance to
the golden temple had been so closely watched by Captain Paget's
daughter.

She rose as he spoke, and turned to him. "You have been losing, I
suppose, Mr. Hawkehurst," she said, "or you would not have come home?"

"I am compelled to admit that you are right in your premise, Miss
Paget, and your deduction is scarcely worth discussion. I _have_ been
losing--confoundedly; and as they don't give credit at the board of
green cloth yonder, there was no excuse for my staying. Your father has
not been holding his own within the last hour or two; but when I left
the rooms he was going to the Hotel d'Orange with some French fellows
for a quiet game of _ecarte_. Our friend the Captain is a great card,
Miss Paget, and has a delightful talent for picking up distinguished
acquaintance."

There are few daughters who would have cared to hear a father spoken of
in this free-and-easy manner; but Diana Paget was quite unmoved. She
had resumed her old attitude, and sat looking towards the lighted
windows of the Kursaal, while Mr. Hawkehurst lounged against the angle
of the window with his hands in his pockets and a cigar in his mouth.

For three years Valentine Hawkehurst had lived in constant
companionship with the Captain's daughter; and in that time his manner
to her had undergone considerable variation. Of late it had been
something in the manner of an elder brother, whose fraternal breast is
impervious to the influence of a sister's loveliness or a sister's
fascination. If Diana Paget had been a snub-nosed young person with