upon a garden seat.

"It's a queer thing," he said reflectingly. "The girl's been thrown
repeatedly at my head for a week and I might have kissed her at any
moment, before her father and mother if I had liked, and they'd have
thanked me. Now I've done it I'm sorry. She looked prettier than I've
ever seen her too--and she's the only decent one of the lot. Lord! what
a hubbub there'll be in the morning!"

The stars came out and the moon rose, and still Scarlett Trent lingered
in the scented darkness. He was a man of limited imagination and little
given to superstitions. Yet that night there came to him a presentiment.
He felt that he was on the threshold of great events. Something new
in life was looming up before him. He had cut himself adrift from the
old--it was a very wonderful and a very beautiful figure which was
beckoning him to follow in other paths. The triumph of the earlier part
of the day seemed to lie far back in a misty and unimportant past. There
was a new world and a greater, if fortune willed that he should enter
it.

CHAPTER XI

Trent was awakened next morning by the sound of carriage wheels in the
drive below. He rang his bell at once. After a few moments' delay it was
answered by one of his two men-servants.

"Whose carriage is that in the drive?" he asked. "It is a fly for Mr. Da
Souza, sir."

"What! has he gone?" Trent exclaimed.

"Yes, sir, he and Mrs. Da Souza and the young lady."

"And Miss Montressor and her friend?"

"They shared the fly, sir. The luggage all went down in one of the
carts."

Trent laughed outright, half scornfully, half in amusement.

"Listen, Mason," he said, as the sound of wheels died away. "If any of
those people come back again they are not to be admitted--do you hear?
if they bring their luggage you are not to take it in. If they come
themselves you are not to allow them to enter the house. You understand
that?"

"Yes, sir.

"Very good! Now prepare my bath at once, and tell the cook, breakfast
in half an hour. Let her know that I am hungry. Breakfast for one, mind!
Those fools who have just left will get a morning paper at the station
and they may come back. Be on the look-out for them and let the other
servants know. Better have the lodge gate locked."

"Very good, sir."

The man who had been lamenting the loss of an easy situation and
possibly even a month's wages, hastened to spread more reassuring news
in the lower regions. It was a practical