"Well! the man is gone to-day, that is one comfort. I am very thankful I acted as I did," reasoned that ever-worried lady in her boudoir the next morning. "I am afraid Cecil is really very fond of him, there were such black shadows under her eyes at breakfast, poor child! But it is much better as it is--much better. I should never have held up my head again if I had allowed her to make such a disadvantageous alliance. I can hardly bear to think of what would have been said, even now the danger is over!" While Lady Marabout was thus comforting herself over her embroidery silks, Cecil Ormsby was pacing into the Park, with old Twitters the groom ten yards behind her, taking her early ride before the world was up--it was only eleven o'clock; Cecil had been used to early rising, and would never leave it off, having discovered some recipe that made her independent of ordinary mortals' quantum of sleep. "Surely he will be here this morning to see me for the last time," thought that young lady, as she paced up the New Ride under the Kensington Gardens trees, with her heart beating quickly under the gold aiglettes of her riding-jacket. "I must see her once more, and then----" thought Chandos Cheveley, as he leaned against the rails, smoking, as he had done scores of mornings before. His man had packed his things; his hansom was waiting at the gates to take him to the station, and his portmanteau was lettered "Ischl." He had only come to take one last look of the face that haunted him as no other had ever succeeded in doing. The ring of a horse's hoof fell on his ear. There she came, on her roan hack, with the sun glancing off her chestnut hair. He looked up to bow to her as she passed on, for the Ride had never been a rendezvous for more than a bow (Cecil's insurrectionary tactics had always been carried on before Lady Marabout's face), but the roan was pulled up by him that morning for the very first time, and Cecil's eyes fell on him through their lashes. "Mr. Cheveley--is it true you are going out of town?" "Quite true." If her voice quivered as she asked the question, he barely kept his own from doing the same as he answered it. "Will you be gone long?" "Till next season, at earliest." His promise to Lady Marabout was hard to keep! He would not have trusted his strength if he had known she would have done more than canter on with her usual bow and smile. Cecil was silent. The groom waited like a statue his ten yards behind them. She played with her reins nervously, the color coming and going painfully in her face. "Lady Marabout told me of--of some conversation you had with her yesterday?" Low as the words were, Cheveley heard them, and his hand, as it lay on the rails, shook like a girl's. Cecil was silent again; she looked at him, her eyes full of unshed tears, as the color burned in her face, and she drooped her head almost to a level with her hands as they played with the reins. "She told me--you----"