ll----With something like an oath he dragged himself up the grandiose
stairs of the hotel, and went to bed.

In the morning the mate of the yacht brought him a letter from Lady
Angleford. It said that she had heard that he had arrived at
Southampton, and that she hoped he would go on to Anglemere and see and
approve of the alterations and improvements she was attempting, and that
he would "go into residence" in three weeks' time, as she had asked a
housewarming party to welcome him.

Drake stared at the letter moodily, and wished himself among the big
game in Africa, or salmon fishing in Norway; but he felt that Lady
Angleford was trying to do her duty by him, and knew that he ought to
follow suit.

He gravitated between the hotel and his yacht for a few days, his face
growing sterner and more moody each day, then he rode out to Anglemere
again.

It was a lovely afternoon, and, if he had not been haunted by the vision
of Nell, Drake would have reveled in the blue sky, the soft breeze, the
singing of the birds, and the scent of the flowers; but all these
recalled Nell and Shorne Mills, and only made the aching of his heart
more acute.

He wondered, as he rode along the well-kept roads, whether she was still
at Shorne Mills; whether she had forgotten him, whether she was married.
At the last thought, the blood rushed to his head, and he jerked the
reins so that the good horse broke into a gallop which carried Drake to
the southern lodge, where--if he could but have known it!--dwelt Nell
herself!

The gates were open, and he rode through; but as he passed the lodge,
the sound of a violin played by a master hand smote upon his ear. He
pulled the horse into a walk, and approached the house in a dream.

Workmen were all over the place, and he stared about him like a
stranger; and they eyed him with half-indifferent, half-curious
scrutiny. He got off his horse and walked up the stone steps of the
terrace into the hall. Here the foreman of the firm of decorators
approached him.

"Do you want to see any one, sir?" he asked.

"No," said Drake diplomatically. He was reluctant to announce himself.
"You are making some alterations?" he said.

"Rather, sir," assented the foreman, with a self-satisfied smile. "We're
just turning the old place inside out. For the new lord, you know."

"I see," said Drake.

He knew that he ought to have said: "I am the new lord--I am Lord
Angleford." But he shrank from it. The whole thin