Among the most noted people frequenting Baden at this time, were a Mrs. Ogden-Stuart and her beautiful daughter. It had been understood on their arrival that Miss Stuart was engaged to the good-looking American, Mr. Leonard, who was traveling in their party. This fact, however, did not seem to stand in the way of her flirting openly with every eligible man in the place, nor prevent her from receiving their constant homage. Leonard was evidently wretched, and there was a touch of recklessness in his manner, which, Guy felt, boded no good to a man of his highly strung, sensitive nature. For a week after Guy's arrival things drifted on, but there was something in the air that seemed to foretell a crisis. Guy had been presented to Miss Stuart, but in spite of her beauty and fascination found nothing in her to like or respect. This Miss Stuart felt instinctively, and as she was accustomed to admiration, it stung her into a desire to win something more than indifference from Leonard's friend. Her efforts were totally unsuccessful, and, as her treatment of her lover became less and less loyal, Guy withdrew altogether from her society, showing her no further courtesy than an occasional bow of recognition. In the meantime Miss Stuart's latest affair, with a certain Frenchman of unenviable reputation, was giving Baden food for gossip and keeping it on the _qui vive_ for a scandal. Late one afternoon, while Guy sat on the veranda reading letters from home, Miss Stuart and Leonard passed him. The girl's face wore a mocking smile, her eyes a taunt; Leonard was white as death, and his lips twitched piteously. Guy's own face grew stern as he looked up at them, and when Miss Stuart threw him a careless word in salutation he could scarcely frame a civil reply. That evening Leonard went to Guy's room, and flinging himself down in a chair, gave voice for the first time to his misery. "I tell you, Appleton," he exclaimed, with a hard laugh, "I shall throw up the game pretty soon. I may be a coward; but it takes more courage than I have to face this thing any longer." Guy was more startled than he cared to reveal by his friend's passionate, despairing vehemence; and he made an effort to treat the matter lightly and to divert Leonard's thoughts, but his efforts were not crowned with success. When Leonard had left him he paced up and down the room, revolving in his mind what step he should take. At length he determined to go to Miss Stuart, and appeal to her, hoping that so direct a course would result favorably. He began the interview awkwardly, feeling that his presumption was almost unwarrantable, but when she met his earnest plea for his friend first with indifference, and then with undisguised amusement, he found his anger rising.