tled all by saying. "Let him approach," he begged.

Rotherby came forward like one who walks in his sleep. "I am sorry," he
said thickly, "cursed sorry."

"There's scarce the need," said Mr. Caryll. "Lift me up, Tom," he begged
Gascoigne. "There's scarce the need. You have cleared up something that
was plaguing me, my lord. I am your debtor for--for that. It disposes of
something I could never have disposed of had I lived." He turned to the
Duke of Wharton. "It was an accident," he said significantly. "You all
saw that it was an accident."

A denial rang out. "It was no accident!" cried Lord Ostermore, and swore
an oath. "We all saw what it was."

"I'faith, then, your eyes deceived you. It was an accident, I say--and
who should know better than I?" He was smiling in that whimsical
enigmatic way of his. Smiling still he sank back into Gascoigne's arms.

"You are talking too much," said the Major.

"What odds? I am not like to talk much longer."

The door opened to admit a gentleman in black, wearing a grizzle wig and
carrying a gold-headed cane. Men moved aside to allow him to approach
Mr. Caryll. The latter, not noticing him, had met at last the gaze of
Hortensia's eyes. He continued to smile, but his smile was now changed
to wistfulness under that pitiful regard of hers.

"It is better so," he was saying. "Better so!"

His glance was upon her, and she understood what none other there
suspected--that those words were for her alone.

He closed his eyes and swooned again, as the doctor stooped to remove
the temporary bandages from his wound.

Hortensia, a sob beating in her throat, turned and fled to her own room.

CHAPTER XII. SUNSHINE AND SHADOW

Mr. Caryll was almost happy.

He reclined on a long chair, supported by pillows cunningly set for
him by the deft hands of Leduc, and took his ease and indulged his
day-dreams in Lord Ostermore's garden. He sat within the cool, fragrant
shade of a privet arbor, interlaced with flowering lilac and laburnum,
and he looked out upon the long sweep of emerald lawn and the little
patch of ornamental water where the water-lilies gaped their ivory
chalices to the morning sun.

He looked thinner, paler and more frail than was his habit, which is not
wonderful, considering that he had been four weeks abed while his wound
was mending. He was dressed, again by the hands of the incomparable
Leduc, in a deshabille of some artistry. A dark-blue dressing-gown of
flowere