m you," says Mrs. Herrick.

"Ah! Thank you! Now at last you are beginning to see things in their
true light, and to take my part," says Mr. Kelly, with exaggerated
gratitude. "Now, indeed, I feel I have not lived in vain! You have,
though at a late hour, recognized the extraordinary promptitude that
characterizes my every action. While another might have been hesitating,
I drew the curtain. I am seldom to be found wanting, I may, indeed,
always be discovered just where----"

"You _aren't_ wanting," interrupts Mrs. Herrick, with a sudden smile.

"How can _that_ be," says Kelly, with reproachful sadness, "when I am
generally to be found near you?"

At this Hermia gives in, and breaks into a low soft laugh.

"But I wish you had not told that story of Olga and Mr. Ronayne," she
says, in a whisper, and with some regret. "You saw how badly Rossmoyne
took it."

"That is partly why I told it. I think you are wrong in trying to make
that marriage: she would be happier with Ronayne."

"For a month or two, perhaps."

"Oh, make it _three_," says Kelly, satirically. "Surely the little
winged god has so much staying power."

"A few weeks ago you told me you did not believe in him at all."

"I have changed all that."

"Ah! _you_ can be fickle too."

"A man is not necessarily fickle because when he discovers the only true
good he leaves the bad and presses towards it. I think, too, his
mentor," in a lowered tone, "should be the last to misjudge him."

"Nothing is so lasting, at least, as riches," says Mrs. Herrick, with a
chastened but unmistakable desire to change his mood. "Olga with
unlimited means and an undeniable place in the world of society would be
a happier Olga than as the wife of a country gentleman."

"I don't agree with you; but you know best--_perhaps_. You speak your
own sentiments, of course. A title is indispensable to you too, as well
as to her?"

His tone is half a question.

"It counts," she says, slowly, trifling with firm though slender fingers
with the grasses that are growing in the interstices of the marble.

"Pshaw!" says Kelly. Rising with a vehemence foreign to him, he crosses
to where Ulic Ronayne is standing alone.

CHAPTER XXII.

How Olga drowns a faithful servant--How Mr. Kelly conjures up a
ghost--And how Monica, beneath the mystic moonbeams, grants the gift
she first denies.

"Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" he says, lightly, laying his hand on
Ulic's shoulder