tion of Lord Shotover, brightened sensibly again. And, for cause
unknown, he looked at Honoria, smiling amusedly, before saying to the
very voluble small sportsman:--

"To be sure, Dick. Your arguments are unanswerable, convincingly sound.
No reasonable man could have a doubt about it! Of course it's the same
deer."

And so the luncheon finished gaily enough, though Miss St. Quentin was
conscious her contributions to the cultivation of that same gaiety were
but spasmodic. She dreaded the conclusion of the meal, fearing lest
then she might be called upon to behold Richard Calmady once again, as
she had beheld him--now just on six years ago--in the half dismantled
house in Lowndes Square, on the night of Lady Louisa Barking's ball.
And from that she shrank, not with her former physical repulsion
towards the man himself, but with the moral repulsion of one compelled
against his will to gaze upon a pitifully cruel sight, the suffering of
which he is powerless to lessen or amend. The short, light-made
crutches, lying on the floor by the young man's chair, shocked her as
the callous exhibition of some unhappy prisoner's shackling-irons
might. It constituted an indignity offered to the Richard sitting here
beside her, so much as to think of, let alone look at, that same
Richard when on foot. Therefore it was with an oddly mingled relief and
sense of playing traitor, that she rose with the rest of the little
company and left him by himself. She was thankful to escape, though all
the while her inherent loyalty tormented her with accusation of
meanness, as of one who deserts a comrade in distress.

But here the small Dick, to whom such complex refinements of
sensibility were as yet wholly foreign, created a diversion by prancing
round from the far side of the table and forcibly seizing her hand. He
was jealous of the large share Godfrey had to-day secured of her
society. He meant to have his innings. So he rubbed his curly head
against her much braided elbow, butting her lovingly in the exuberance
of his affection as some nice, little ram-lamb might. But just as they
reached the door, through which Lady Calmady and the rest of the party
had already passed, the boy drew up short.

"I say, hold on half a minute, Honoria, please," he said.

And then, turning round, his cheeks red as peonies, he marched back to
where Richard sat alone at the head of the table.

"In case--in case, don't you know," he began, stuttering in the exc