By what feeling was Stewart Routh, who was with her when she received Mr. Felton's note, and who strongly urged the answer she sent to it, actuated t He would have found it difficult to tell. Not jealousy; the tone in which she had spoken of Arthur Felton precluded that feeling. Routh had felt that it was genuine, even while he knew that this woman was deliberately enslaving him, and therefore was naturally suspicious of every tone in which she spoke of any one. But his judgment was not yet entirely clouded by passion; he had felt, in their brief conversation relative to Arthur Felton, that her tone had been true. He hated George Dallas now; he did not deceive himself about that. There was a vague dread and trouble in his thoughts concerning the young man. Once he had only despised him. He no longer despised him; but he hated him instead. And this hatred, further reaching than love, included all who were connected with George, and especially Mr. Felton, whose grave and distant manner, whose calm and penetrating glance, conveyed keen offence to Stewart Routh. They had not spoken of the matter to each other; but Routh had felt, as soon and as strongly as Harriet, that his influence over Dallas was at an end. As it happened, he had successfully used that influence for the last time in which he could foresee any need for its employment, and therefore Mr. Felton had not done him any practical injury; but that did not matter: he hated him all the same. He had watched the smile with which Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge read Mr. Felton's note a little anxiously. He did not dare to ask her from whom the missive came, but she graciously gave him the information. "He wants to see me, to find out Master Arthur's doings," she said, with a ringing mischievous laugh. "Not that I know anything about him since he left Paris, and I shall have to look serious and listen to more preaching than goes well with the sunshine of to-day. It's rather a nuisance;" and the lady pouted her scarlet lips very effectively. "Don't see him," said Routh, as he leant forward and gazed at her with eager admiration. "Don't see him. Don't lose this beautiful day, or any part of it, for him. You can't give him any real information." "Except that his son is coming here," she said, slyly. "I forgot," said Stewart Routh, as he rose and walked moodily to the window. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge smiled a little triumphantly, and said, gaily: "He shall wait for the news. I dare say it will be quite as welcome to-morrow." "Don't say to-morrow either," said Routh, approaching her again, as she seated herself at her writing-table, and bending so as to look into her eyes. "Why?" she asked, as she selected a pen. "Because I must go away on Thursday. I have an appointment, to meet a man at Frankfort. I shall be away all day. Let this anxious parent come to you in my absence; don't waste the time upon him."