"Were you really with the other gentlemen?" she said. "I didn't see you. There was Sir Richard. Oh, I saw Sir Richard, and young Mr Landale, and a strange gentleman--but I have seen him before--I know I have seen him before; and you were there? I am glad I did not see you. I should have laughed or something. Perhaps I did not see you because I was looking at Sir Richard." "Then you have seen _him_ before?" said Roger, setting his teeth. "_Seen_ him before? Oh, hundreds and hundreds of times! I see him most days, going or coming, almost as often as I see you----" "He is a villain, then!" cried Roger, hotly. "He is engaged to--a lady." "I know; he is engaged to Miss Mary. What does that matter? _I'm_ not keeping company with him," said Lily. "If you think I would take another girl's leavings--if she was a princess!--I would scorn it. And I don't think of the like of him. They come and they go, it don't matter to me. What have I got to do with the gentlemen? A nod or a smile out of civility, but no more." "That is quite right, Lily," cried Roger, radiant. He came a step nearer and took her hand softly. "But you don't mean that for me?" "Why shouldn't I mean it for you?" she cried, throwing off his hand. "But there's some one coming," she added, with a little shriek, and fled within the shelter of the door. Roger, after lingering for a minute in hope of her return, was about to turn disconsolately away, when she suddenly appeared again, between the half-opened door and the wall, and pulling out with one finger a piece of velvet round her neck, showed him his little locket suspended to it. "There!" she cried, and suddenly shut in his face and bolted the garden door. From which he limped home, tantalised yet happy, thinking of his possible rivals no more. CHAPTER VI.