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the countess?"

Lady Luce looked at him keenly, and with a half-reproachful air

"I--I--have been very frightened, Drake," she said

For the life of him he could not even affect a tenderness

"On leford came forward hurriedly

"Drake! You are not hurt! Thank God!" And her hands clasped his arot your jewels?" he said, in the curt tone hich a man

tries to fend off a fuss "Are they all there?"

She made an impatient movement

"Yes, yes--oh, yes! As if they mattered! Tell rimly

"Yes He will pull round, I hope We shall know o to bed? Wolfer, I have wanted a drink once

or twice in my life, but never, I think, quite so keenly as now"

The athered round him as he stopped at the foot of the stairs to

wish the woht Luce came last, and as she held out her hand,

looked at hio without the word

she had been expecting--the word he had promised? He understood the

appeal in her eyes, but he could not respond Not to-night, with Nell's

face and voice haunting him, could he ask Lady Luce to be his wife

To-morrow--yes, to-morrow!