obliged to let her lids fall over them to cover the
tell-tales beneath; her breath comes and goes quickly.

Something like relief comes to her when Lord Rossmoyne, stretching his
long neck round the curtain that half shields the cushioned recess of
the window where they are sitting, says, with considerable animation,
for him,--

"Ah! so I have found you, Mrs. Bohun."

"You have indeed, and in good time. I am pining in prison, but you have
come to deliver me."

"If I may."

"Such a dreary little spot, is it not? I don't know what could have
induced me to enter it."

"Ronayne possibly," says Rossmoyne, with an unpleasant smile.

"Oh, dear, no!" contemptuously: "I came here of my own free will. We all
do foolish things at times, I have not danced this last because Mr.
Ronayne prefers pleasant converse. I don't. I thought you would never
come to seek me. What were you doing?"

"Hunting for you, and thinking every minute an hour. These
curtains"--touching them--"were jealous of you, and sought to hide you."

"Well, don't be so long next time," she says, looking up at him with a
smile that a little more pressure would make tender and laying her hand
on his arm.

She moves away. Ronayne, drawing his breath somewhat savagely, sits down
on the sill of the window and gazes blankly into the barrack-yard below.
He has still her programme in his hand, and is crumpling it
unconscionably, hardly knowing what he does. But, if disturbed in mind,
it is always _such_ a comfort to smash something, be it a piece of
pasteboard or one's most intimate friend.

She had forgotten her card, probably, and now it is almost useless.
Ronayne's heart is full of bitterness, and he tries to swear to himself
that for the future he will cleanse his heart of this coquette, who
cares no more for him--nay, far less--than she does for her little toy
terrier. Yet, even as these stern resolves seek vainly to root
themselves in his breast, his eyes turn again to the room beyond, and
make search for the siren who is his undoing. She is still, of course,
with Rossmoyne, and is all smiles and pretty blushes, and is evidently
both content and happy.

"I am a fool!--a madman!" he says to himself; and even as he says it
his eyes light on Owen Kelly, who by chance is looking at him too.

Crossing the room, the latter (as though drawn by the melancholy eyes
that have met his) soon reaches the window where Ronayne stands
disconsolate.

"Why so pale an