‘I shouldn’t think the presence of the dowager will do much to enliven the Court,’ remarks Mrs Carnaby-Hicks spitefully. ‘She is not likely to teach my wife extravagance,’ laughs Sir Roland; ‘but Juliet and she seem to get on very well together.’ ‘Perhaps she is a style that suits Lady Tresham,’ says his sister. ‘I have always understood she was a dowdy and a screw.’ ‘Oh, I don’t mean to let my wife _screw_,’ replies the baronet uneasily. ‘She has had little enough pin-money hitherto, poor girl, and she shall have a liberal allowance now, if nothing else.’ ‘Why do you call Lady Tresham “poor”?’ whispers Mabel in his ear. ‘I should have said she was the richest of women.’ ‘Not quite that,’ he answers, wilfully misunderstanding her, ‘though she need have no fear for the future. But she has had barely enough for comfort until now.’ ‘She has always had _you_,’ says Miss Moore, softly. ‘Some ladies might consider that an extra misfortune!’ ‘_Some_ might,’ echoes the girl with a heavy sigh, the meaning of which it is impossible to misconstrue. Lord Ernest Freemantle proves to be a simple, undersized little gentleman, who is very much enamoured of Miss Mabel Moore, and becomes proportionately jealous of Sir Roland Tresham. And the latter, delighted at the feeling he has provoked, takes pleasure in exciting it to the last degree, by a still closer attendance on the young lady. One evening, when she has refused to accompany Lord Ernest and her aunt on a walking expedition through the town, Sir Roland persuades her to go on the water with him in a gondola. Mabel assents with alacrity, and they are soon floating together over the placid surface of the canal, seated under the canopy at one end of the boat, whilst the gondoliers ply their oars to the music of their own voices at the other. ‘How I wish we could go floating on like this into eternity,’ remarks Sir Roland, presently. ‘It would be very easy,’ replies Mabel in a low voice. ‘It is but to cast ourselves over the side into those dark waters and sink out of sight for ever. It would be a happier fate—at least for me—than any I have to look forward to.’ ‘You mustn’t talk like that. You are young, and have every prospect of a happy life before you.’ ‘Indeed, I have not.’ ‘My dear Mabel, why those tears?’ exclaims Sir Roland, as the girl dashes her hand across her eyes. ‘What have I said to vex you?’ ‘Nothing. But life is so hard, and—and—disappointing.’ He passes his arm around her waist. ‘Tell me what makes it so to you.’ ‘Oh, Roland,’ she whispers, ‘_you know_.’ The tone, the words, are too much for him. To hold a pretty woman in his arms and hear her murmuring her love for himself would be perhaps too much for any man. Anyway, it disperses all Sir Roland’s prudence.