‘It was the chaplain of the military station who wrote,’ continued Sir Sykes, ‘inclosing in his letter that which poor Willis had left for myself; and unless I telegraph to veto the arrangement, you are likely to see Miss Ruth‒did I say that her name was Ruth‒very soon, since she is to start by the next mail from Bombay.’ ‘Well,’ muttered Jasper to himself, as some time later in the morning he sauntered through the plantations, the path across which made a short cut from Carbery Chase to Lord Wolverhampton’s park at High Tor, ‘I have seen some cool hands; but‒‒ Well, well! It was neatly done, very neatly. If the governor had not had the rare luck to come into a fortune, he would have been as fit to make one as any man I ever came across.’ The young man, whose preference for crooked ways was congenital, and who knew of no road to Fortune’s temple save miry and devious ones, began really to feel an admiration for his father’s abilities, since he had discovered to what profound depths of dissimulation the baronet could descend. His own craft had enabled him to lift a corner of the fair seeming mask which Sir Sykes wore before the world, but as yet his knowledge was too imperfect to enable its possessor to make capital of the secret. Could he once‒‒ ‘Why, Captain Denzil!’ exclaimed a ringing girlish voice, ‘I could almost give you credit for poetic reveries, so complete is your unconsciousness of the mere commonplace world around you. You had all but passed us without a word or a bow.’ Jasper could not repress a slight start, as he found himself in presence of the three Ladies De Vere and of their brother Lord Harrogate, in the main avenue of the park. The young man’s moody countenance brightened at once. ‘I am not, as a rule, greatly given to dreaming in broad daylight, Lady Gladys,’ he said good-humouredly; ‘and as for the poetry, I’ll promise to dedicate my first volume of sonnets, or whatever they call them, to yourself. I am afraid, though, you will have to wait a little before I take a plunge into literature.’ ‘Of books‒of a sort, you have been rather a diligent compiler,’ said Lord Harrogate, smiling. Jasper bit his lip; but it was in a careless tone that he rejoined: ‘That’s only too true; but let me tell you, Harrogate, there goes more of hard thinking to the composition of a betting-book than people usually suppose.‒I was on my way to the house, meaning to inflict a little of my dullness on you, Lady Maud, but you are early abroad.’ ‘Yes; and you may as well walk down with us,’ said Lady Maud. ‘We are going to the school, to see how my friend, Miss Gray, the school-mistress, fares after her moorland adventure of Saturday. You heard of it, Captain Denzil?’ No; Jasper had not heard of it. And on receiving an account of it from Lady Maud’s lips, the captain said, with never so little of a sneer, that the episode was ‘quite romantic.’