‘It is a grand position,’ said the father, thoughtfully, ‘and I do not know that I should be justified in refusing it for Nora. Only it seems very terrible to me about this other young woman. How is your marriage likely to affect her? I could have no faith in the stability of my daughter’s happiness if it were built up on the misery of another.’ Lord Ilfracombe looked up astonished. ‘Oh, Sir Richard, you need have no scruples on that account, I assure you. These people do not feel as we do. I should have ended the business any way, for I was getting rather sick of it. To prove what I say is correct, I have already written to my man of business, Mr Sterndale, to draw up a deed settling five thousand pounds upon her, which will secure an ample annuity for a woman in her sphere of life. She was only a country girl somewhere out of Scotland, I believe. She will be all right, and, honestly, I never wish to hear her name again.’ ‘Very well, Lord Ilfracombe, of course, under any circumstances, the termination of such a connection is a good thing, and I am glad to hear that the remembrance of it is distasteful to you. You are a man of honour, and, therefore, I accept your assurance that it is all over henceforth, and that you will make my daughter a kind and faithful husband. But be careful of her, and don’t let her have too much of her own way. I’ve seen the bad effects of such a course of behaviour before now.’ So it was a settled thing that Miss Nora Abinger was to become the Countess of Ilfracombe, and she rose in the estimation of the residents of Malta accordingly. She had been a fast, bold, flirting girl as Nora Abinger, but when she was announced as the future Lady Ilfracombe, it was suddenly discovered that she was really excessively clever and witty, and though no one could call her exactly pretty, there was something, a _je ne sais quoi_, about her manner of holding herself and the way she turned her head that was certainly very fascinating. Her promised husband, who had discovered her fascinations before, and was admitted to the full enjoyments of all her wilful moods and witty sayings, fell more deeply in love with her every day, and had hardly patience to wait till the wedding preparations were completed for the fulfilment of his happiness. If a thought of Nell Llewellyn crossed his mind at this period it was only to hope that her interview with Sterndale had passed off quietly, and that she would have the sense to clear out without any fuss. So intensely selfish does a new passion make a man! The time had been when Nell, who was twice as strong, mentally and physically, as Nora Abinger, was Lord Ilfracombe’s ideal of a woman. Her finely moulded form had seemed to him the perfection of symmetry; her majestic movements, the bearing of a queen; the calm, classic expression of her features, just what that of a well-bred gentlewoman’s should be. Now he was gazing rapturously, day after