Nothing daunted, he repeated his calls, till it was perfectly evident that neither Mrs Marter nor Ella would see him; and he was coming away knit of brow one day, when he started with anger on seeing a cab trundle by with Max Bray as its occupant. It was most repugnant to his feelings to play the spy; but in despite of himself he followed the cab till he saw it stop at Crescent Villas, and Max spring out, run up the steps and ring, to be the next minute admitted, the cab being driven off. One hour, two hours, three hours, did Charley Vining wait, when, it being evident that Max was dining there, he returned to his hotel; and then, in a state of mental anguish that he could not control, he wrote a long and earnest letter to Ella, imploring her to see him, telling of his sufferings, and of how he had been refused entrance again and again. He waited three days and there was no response, when he wrote again--a bitter angry letter this time, to have it returned to him unopened by the next post, the direction, he felt sure, being in Max Bray's handwriting. Maddened now by the jealous feelings that assailed him, he watched the house till he saw that Max Bray was a constant visitor. Then came a night when a brougham was at the door, and he saw Max hand down two ladies, one of whom was Ella. Then taking his place, the door of the brougham was closed, and it was driven off. "Follow that fly," said Charley to a cabman; and the man drew up at last by the Piazza in the Haymarket, and Charley leaped out just in time to see Max disappearing in the stall-entrance of Her Majesty's Theatre, Mrs Marter upon one arm, Ella upon the other. Dressed as he was, it was with some difficulty that Charley secured a place where he could, unobserved, watch the movements of the party. Max's quiet gentlemanly attentions were directed to both alike, the passing of the book of the words, the seeking places, and lastly the replacing of the opera-cloak upon Ella's gracefully rounded shoulders. They passed close to him where he stood muffled up and with flashing eyes, Ella's cloak brushing his coat on the way to the brougham; and then they were driven off. He wrote again after a sleepless night, telling of what he had seen, and imploring Ella to send him if but a line to assure him that his suspicions were false. "I have fought against them till it seems to me that it would require more than human strength," he said naively, "while now I feel almost driven to believe." The same result: the letter returned unopened, and redirected in a hand that he was certain was Max Bray's. Furious now with rage, he took a cab and drove to Max's lodgings in Bury-street, Saint James's, to arrive in time to see two ladies descend the steps--one of whom was Ella--Max handing them into a waiting brougham, and kissing his hand as they were driven off.