ossible bride
was very sweet to him. But when at last sleep came, dreams came
likewise. Helen de Vallorbes' perfect face arose, in reproach, before
him, and her azure and purple draperies swept over him, stifling and
choking him as the salt waves of an angry sea. Then some one--it was
the comely, long-limbed young soldier, Mr. Decies--whom he had seen
last night at the Barkings' great party when Morabita sang--and the
soprano's matchless voice was mixed up, in the strangest fashion, with
all these transactions--lifted Helen and all her magic sea-waves from
off him, setting him free. But even as he did so, Dickie perceived that
it was not Helen, after all, whom the young soldier carried in his
arms, but little Lady Constance Quayle. Whereupon Richard, waking with
a start, conceived a wholly unreasoning detestation of Mr. Decies,
while, along with that, his purpose of marrying Lady Constance
increased notably, waxed strong and grew, putting forth all manner of
fair flowers of promise and of hope.

CHAPTER IV

A LESSON UPON THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT--"PARENTS OBEY YOUR CHILDREN"

A family council was in course of holding in the lofty, white-and-gold
boudoir, overlooking the Park, in Albert Gate. Lady Louisa Barking had
summoned it. She had also exercised a measure of selection among
intending members. For instance Lady Margaret and Lady Emily,--the
former having a disposition, in the opinion of her elder sister, to put
herself forward and support the good cause with more zeal than
discretion, the latter being but a weak-kneed supporter of the cause at
best,--were summarily dismissed.

"It was really perfectly unnecessary to discuss this sort of thing
before the younger girls," she said. "It put them out of their place
and rather rubbed the freshness off their minds. And then they would
chatter among themselves. And it all became a little foolish and missy.
They never knew when to stop."

One member of the Quayle family, and that a leading one, had taken his
dismissal before it was given and, with a nice mixture of defective
moral-courage and good common-sense, had removed himself bodily from
the neighbourhood of the scene of action. Lord Shotover was still in
London. Along with the payment of his debts had come a remarkable
increase of cheerfulness. He made no more allusions to the unpleasant
subject of cutting his throat, while the proposed foreign tour had been
relegated to a vague future. It seemed a pity n