own of it
but my mother, Lady Carruthers, and my lawyer, Mr. Forster. So far as
the world is concerned, I am safe."

The prince returned, looking slightly jealous, and then Basil amused
himself, after a bitter fashion. He watched Lady Amelie playing off all
her airs, graces, and fascinations on the young prince, as she had
played them upon him. He was cured. It was a bitter lesson, but it
lasted him. He began to understand the difference between romance and
reality--between dreaming and doing. It had been a hard, bitter, almost
shameful, lesson, but he was thankful in after years that he had learned
it.

He found, after a time, that the world was wiser than he thought.

"There is some story about Mr. Carruthers," people would say, but no one
ever knew exactly what it was. He remained in Rome for a whole week.
Before it was over he was quite cured of his liking for the queen of
coquettes.

CHAPTER XV.

The Denouement.

Then Basil Carruthers set himself busily to work to discover how he
might best undo the effects of his folly. The duties he had thought so
lightly of rose before him now.

"I will go down to Ulverston," he said to himself, "and with God's help
I will be a wiser and a better man."

He saw what his mistaken notions of chivalry had done for him--how
completely they had misled him--how near they had brought him to ruin
and disgrace. The meeting between mother and son was not the most
pleasant in the world. Lady Carruthers, stately, sensitive, and proud,
could not forgive the dark disgrace under which her son had lain. He saw
how deeply she felt it.

"Mother," he said, "you must judge me leniently. I own myself mistaken.
I think, sometimes, I must have been mad, I cannot tell you precisely
what took me to prison. Will you believe me that it was for a woman's
sake?"

"I knew it!" she interrupted.

"It was to screen a woman's folly," he continued. "And, indeed, wrong as
I was, I believed myself to be doing a most chivalrous deed."

"It is a great pity, Basil," said Lady Carruthers.

"Yes," he said, quietly; "but I was a woman's dupe, and I have suffered
enough. It was one false step, but I shall spend my life in trying to
redeem it."

He kept his word. In four years' time the name of Basil Carruthers rang
through the land with a pleasant sound; he had, indeed, found something
to do.

He was returned for the borough of Rutsford, and his fame as an able an
eloquent orator spread over t