She turned and inclined her head haughtily, and waited, as if for him to speak, but Jasper remained silent. She had sent for him; he was here!

At last she spoke.

"You received my note, Mr. Adelstone?"

"I am here," he said, with a slight smile.

She bit her lip, her pride revolting at his presence, at his very tone.

"I sent for you," she said, after a pause, and in the coldest tone, "because I have some information which I thought would interest you."

"Your ladyship is very good," he said.

"And because," she went on, scorning to accept his thanks, "I thought you might be of service."

He inclined his head. He would not meet her half way—would not help her. Let her tell him why she had sent for him, and he would throw himself into the case, not till then.

"The last time that we met you said words which I am not likely to have forgotten."

"I have not forgotten them," he said, "and I am prepared to stand by them."

"You profess to be willing—to be eager to prevent a certain occurrence?"

"If you mean the marriage of Lord Leycester and Stel—Miss Etheridge, I am more than willing; I am determined to prevent it!"

"You speak with great confidence," she said.

"I am always confident, Lady Lenore," he said. "It is by confidence that great things are achieved; this is only a small one."

"And yet it may be beyond your power to achieve," she said, scornfully.

"I think not," he retorted, quietly and gravely.

"Be that as it may," she said, "I have come here this evening to place in your hands a piece of information respecting the girl in whom you profess to take an interest."

The blood came to his pale face, and his eyes gleamed with sudden resentment.

"By 'the girl,' do you refer to Miss Stella Etheridge?" he said, quietly. "If so, permit me to remind your ladyship that she is a lady!"

Lady Lenore made a gesture of haughty indifference.

"Call her what you please," she said, coldly, insolently. "I did refer to her."

"And to the man in whom you take an interest?" he said, with an insolence that matched her own.

The dark red flamed in her face, and she looked at him.

"That is a side of the question which we will not enter upon, if you please, Mr. Adelstone," she said.

"I am to understand, then," he said, with quiet scorn, "that[182] you came here this evening by your own appointment to do me a service. Is that so?"

He had roused her at last.

"Understand, think what you will," she said, in a low, strange voice; "let there be no parley between us. I wanted to see you and sent for you, and you are here, let that suffice. You wish to prevent the marriage of Lord Leycester and the lady whom we saw him with at this spot. You speak confidently of your power to do so; you will have a speedy opportunity of testing that power, for Lord Leycester intends marrying her to-morrow, or at latest the next day."

He did not start, neither did he turn pale, but he looked at her calmly, fixedly; she knew that her shaft had told home, and she stood and watched and enjoyed.

"How do you know this?" he asked, quietly, in a very low voice.

She paused. It was a bitter humiliation to have to admit to this man, whom she regarded as the dust under her feet, that she, the Lady Lenore, had stooped so low as to steal and read a letter addressed to another person, and that person her rival—but it had to be admitted.

"I know it because he wrote and made arrangements for her flight and their clandestine meeting."

"How do you know it?" he asked, and his voice was dry and harsh.

She paused a moment.

"Because I saw the letter," she said, eying him defiantly.

He smiled—even in his agony and fury he smiled at her humiliation.

"You have indeed done much in my service," he said, with a sneer.

"Yours!" came fiercely to her lips; then she made a gesture of contempt, as if he were beneath her resentment.

"You saw the letter," he said. "What were the arrangements? When and where was she to meet him? Curse him!" he ground out between his teeth.

"She is to go to London by the eleven o'clock train to-morrow, and he will meet her and take her to 24 Bruton Street," she said, curtly.

He choked back the oath that came to his lips.

"Meet him, and alone!" he muttered, the sweat breaking out on his forehead, his lips writhing.

"No, not alone; a boy, her cousin, is to accompany them."

"Ah!" he said, and a malignant smile curled his lips; "I can scotch that small snake; but him—Lord Leycester!" and his hands clinched.

He took a turn in the narrow path, and then came back to her.

"And afterward?" he asked. "What is to follow?"

She shook her head with contemptuous indifference, and leant against the wooden rail, looking down at the bubbling, seething water.

"I do not know. I imagine, as the boy accompanies her, that he will get a special license, and—marry her. But, perhaps"—and[183] she glanced round at his white face with a malicious smile—"perhaps the boy is a mere blind, and Lord Leycester will dispose of him."

"And then?"

"Then," she said, slowly. "Well, Lord Leycester's character is tolerably well known; in all probability he will not find it necessary to make the girl—I beg your pardon! the young lady—the future Countess of Wyndward."

She had gone too far. As the cruel, fearful words left her lips in all their biting, merciless scorn and contempt, he sprang upon her and seized her by the arm.

Her feet slipped, and she turned and clung to him, half her body hanging over the white foaming water.

For a moment they stood there, his gleaming eyes threatening death into hers, then, with a sudden long breath as if he had mastered his murderous impulse, he stepped backward, and drew her with him into safety.

"Take care!" he said, wiping the perspiration from his white forehead with a trembling hand. "Your ladyship nearly went too far! You forget that I love this girl, as you call her, though she is an angel of light and a star of nobility beside you, who stoop to open letters and utter slander! Take care!"

She eyed him with a cruel scorn in her eyes and on her lips, that were white and shamed.

"You would murder me," she said.

He laughed a low, dry laugh.

"I would murder anyone who spoke of her as you spoke," he said, with quiet intensity. "So be warned, my lady. For the future, teach your............