er. Before dawn he shot Carrew through the heart, took the rosebud from
the boy's doublet, put it in his own breast, and fell upon his sword.
They say Muriel lost her senses. I don't believe it: no coquette ever
had so much feeling; but if you ask the old servants they will tell you,
and firmly credit the story too, that hers and Guy Vivian's ghosts still
are to be seen every midnight at Christmas-eve, the day that he fought
and killed little Harry Carrew."

He laughed, but Cecil shuddered.

"What a horrible story! But do you believe that any woman ever possessed
such power over a man?"

"I believe it since I have seen it. One of my best friends is now
hopelessly insane because a woman as worthless as this dead branch
forsook him. Poor fellow! they set it down to a coup de soleil, but it
was the falsehood of Emily Rushbrooke that did it. But, for myself, I
never should lose my head for any woman. I did once when I was a boy,
but I know better now."

A wild, desperate idea came into Cecil's mind. She contrasted the
passionless calm of his face with the tender gentleness of his tone a
few moments ago, and she would have given her life to see him "lose his
head for her" as he had done for that other. How she hated her, whoever
she had been! Cecil had seen too many men not to know that Syd's cool
exterior covered a stormy heart, and in the longing to rouse up the
storm at her incantation she resolved to play a dangerous game. The
ghost story did not warn her. As Mephistopheles to Faust came Horace Cos
to aid the impulse, and Cecil turned to him with one of her radiant
smiles. She never looked prettier than in her black hat; the wind had
only blown a bright flush into her cheeks--though it had turned Laura
blue and the Screechington red--and the Colonel looked up at her as he
put her skates on with something of the look Guy might have given Muriel
Vivian flirting gaily with the roistering cavaliers.

"Now, Sir Horace, show us some of those wonderful Serpentine figures,"
cried Cecil, balancing herself with the grace of a curlew, and whirling
here, there, and everywhere at her will as easily as if she were on a
chalked ball-room floor. She hadn't skated and sledged on the Ontario
for nothing. More than one man had lost his own balance looking after
her. Cos wasn't started yet; one pair of skates were too large, another
pair too small; if he'd thought of it he'd have had his own sent over.
He stood on the brink much as Win