ind that
blows, and, like the chameleon, took his colour from his environments.

It was to no other than Isabella that I owed Lucille's coldness, and I
shrewdly suspected some ulterior motive in the action that transferred
the home of the distressed ladies--for a time at least--from my house
at Hopton to her own house in London. Madame de Clericy and Lucille
were no longer my guests, but hers; and each day diminished their debt
towards me and made them more beholden to Isabella.

"I know," Lucille had said to me one day, "that you despise us for
being happier in London than at Hopton; we are conscious of your
contempt."

And with a laugh she linked arms with Madame de Clericy, who hastened
to say that Hopton was no doubt charming in the spring.

I had long ago discovered that Lucille ruled her mother's heart,
where, indeed, no other interest entered. This visit to Isabella's
town house had, it appears, been arranged by the two girls, Madame
acquiescing, as she acquiesced in all that was for her daughter's
happiness.

In whatsoever line I moved, Isabella seemed to stand in my path ready
to frustrate my designs and impede my progress. And Isabella Gayerson
had been my only playmate in childhood--the companion of my youth,
and, if the matter had rested with me, might have remained the friend
of my whole lifetime.

As I walked down Oxford Street (for in those days I could not afford a
cab, my every shilling being needed to keep open Hopton and pay the
servants there) I pondered over these things, and quite failed to
elucidate them. And writing now, after many stormy years, and in quiet
harbour at Hopton, I still fail to understand Isabella; nor can I tell
what it is that makes a woman so uncertain in her friendships.

Then my thoughts returned to Mr. Devar, where the necessity for action
presented difficulties more after my own heart.

I went to the club and there wrote a letter to Sander, who was still
in the Netherlands, asking him if he knew aught of a gentleman calling
himself Devar, who appeared to me to be no gentleman, who spoke French
like any Frenchman, and had the air of a prosperous scoundrel.

Chapter XXI

Checkmate

"L'honneur n'existe que pour ceux qui ont de l'honneur."

Two or three days later I received a telegram from Sander, couched in
the abrupt language affected by that keen-witted individual:

"Ask John Turner if he knows Devar."

The great banker's affairs were at this t