ly,' said Hartfield. 'Don't awaken him.
I'll see him to-morrow morning before I go to London.'

'He sleeps half the day just as heavy as that, my lord,' said the wife,
with a troubled air. 'I don't think it can be right.'

'I don't think so either,' answered Lord Hartfield. 'You had better call
in the doctor.'

'I will, my lord, to-morrow morning. James will be angry with me, I
daresay; but I must take upon myself to do it without his leave.'

She led the way along a passage corresponding with the one above, and
unlocked a door opening into a lobby near the billiard-room.

'Come, Molly, see if you can beat me at a fifty game,' said Lord
Hartfield, with the air of a man who wants to shake off the impression
of some dominant idea.

'Of course you will annihilate me, but it will be a relief to play,'
answered Mary. 'That strange old man has given me a shock. Everything
about his surroundings is so different from what I expected. And how
could an uncle of Steadman's come by all that money--and those
jewels--if they were jewels, and not bits of glass which the poor old
thing has chopped up, in order to delude himself with an imaginary
treasure?'

'I do not think they are bits of glass, Molly.'

'They sparkled tremendously--almost as much as my--our--the family
diamonds,' said Mary, puzzled how to describe that property which she
held in right of her position as countess regnant; 'but if they are real
jewels, and all those rouleaux real money, how could Steadman's uncle
become possessed of such wealth?'

'How, indeed?' said Lord Hartfield, choosing his cue

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

ON BOARD THE 'CAYMAN.'

Goodwood had come and gone, a brief bright season of loss and gain, fine
gowns, flirtation, lobster en mayonaise, champagne, sunshine, dust,
glare, babble of many voices, successes, failures, triumphs,
humiliations. A very pretty picture to contemplate from the outside,
this little world in holiday clothes, framed in greenery! but just on
the Brocken, where the nicest girl among the dancers had the unpleasant
peculiarity of dropping a little red mouse out of her mouth--so too here
under different forms there were red mice dropping about among the
company. Here a hint of coming insolvency; there a whisper of a
threatened divorce suit, staved off for awhile, compromises, family
secrets, little difficulties everywhere; betrothed couples smilingly
accepting congratulations, who should never have been affianced we