“I am glad to hear that she is ill,” he thought, “though I would not be surprised to find the child of such a father perfectly heartless.” He began to give up all hope of seeing Lady Elaine as the evening advanced and she did not appear. The earl was not particularly cordial, and he had no pretense for prolonging his stay. Luckily, he encountered my lady’s maid in one of the passages, just when he was fuming savagely, and bade her tell her mistress that he desired a few words with her. “That is,” he added, a little considerately, “if she is well enough to see me. I will wait in the west drawing-room.” Lady Elaine came much sooner than he had expected, a world of anxiety and suffering in her face. He stepped forward swiftly and took one of her hands between his, thinking, “Poor child! How I have misjudged her!” “I did not know that you were here, Colonel Greyson,” Lady Elaine said, faintly. She sat down and looked at him pleadingly. “You have no news for me?” “None,” he replied, sadly. “I came here to-day to see if you--if you cared at all.” “If I cared!” she echoed. “Do you not see that my heart is breaking; that this horrible suspense will kill me? The papers are full of cruel things, and if I have sent my darling to his death, I have no further wish to live.” “The papers?” he questioned, and then his eyes blazed with anger when she took from her pocket a marked copy of the society journal which had tried to make scandal out of her misery. “Whose hand is in this?” he muttered. “By Heaven, if I only knew! Toss the thing into the fire!” he added, aloud. “It is not worthy of a moment’s thought, Elaine. Child, be of good cheer. I am leaving no stone unturned. There is foul play somewhere. You promised me that you would send to him. Why did you delay?” “I did not,” was the piteous rejoinder. “Has not Margaret told you? He scoffed at my love; he tore my letter to fragments and threw it away. Afterward he wrote cruel things to me. But he will come back again, if he lives. I know that he will, and I shall wait, if need be, forever.” She looked at him in a way that he never forgot. “I have misjudged you, Lady Elaine,” he said. “I did not think you were capable of such love as this.” He looked at her pityingly, then his brow became dark. “Why did Margaret Nugent not tell me of the letter?” he thought. “This puts the matter in a new light. This inclines me to believe that the earl’s theory is the correct one, and yet how could that boy be guilty of such meanness? He must have been mad.” He promised Lady Elaine some news at an early date, but nothing came of his investigations. A small fortune was spent upon detectives and advertisements in papers all over the world, but not an atom of information was to be obtained anywhere. A hundred messages were flashed across the Atlantic, and many harmless, innocent men were made objects of suspicion, but it all ended in--nothing.