"Not if you look for it in my bracelet," she said, laughing. "But it's obvious Helen has written you a note intended for somebody else. Unless"--here she threatened him with a pretty finger he longed to kiss--"unless you have reason to believe she valued the admiration you could not disguise in all your looks and actions." "Don't say such things!" he exclaimed, in the utmost alarm. "Mrs. Lascelles, do you think I'm--I'm _that_ sort of fellow? Surely _you_ know me better. Surely you are only in joke!" "You're deep, sir" she continued, still laughing at an earnestness that touched while it amused her. "Deep and sly! However, I'll believe you this time, and if you're honestly stupid I'll condescend to explain. Can you take in, that if the note wasn't written to _you_ it must have been intended for somebody else? I can guess who that somebody is. I'll ask Helen point-blank. She's as proud as Lucifer, but I think she has confidence in me." She _did_ ask Helen point-blank, and that young lady, though as proud as Lucifer, condescended to own the truth, but accompanied her confession with a solemn declaration that everything was at an end between herself and Frank Vanguard, so that the great desire of her heart now was never to set eyes on him again. Mrs. Lascelles interpreting these sentiments in her own way, sat down forthwith, and penned the following little note, for further mystification of this bewildered young officer. "DEAR CAPTAIN VANGUARD,--I have discovered something you ought to know. Such an _embrouillement_ was never heard of but in an improbable farce, or still more improbable novel. Come to luncheon to-morrow, and we will lay our heads together in hopes of unravelling the skein. Miss Hallaton is staying with me. You will like to meet her I am sure, only you and I must have our conference _first_. "Yours very sincerely, "ROSE LASCELLES." Frank's heart leaped under his cuirass while he read this mysterious epistle, on his return from a sweltering inspection in the Long Walk. He had been trying to persuade himself he did not care for Helen, and fancied he succeeded. It was humiliating to feel that the bare mention of her name could thus affect him, yet was there a keen, strange pleasure in the sensation nevertheless. On the barrack-room table of this fortunate dragoon there lay however another little missive, bearing to that of Mrs. Lascelles the sort of likeness a pen-wiper has to a butterfly. Its envelope was squarer and larger, its monogram gaudier and more intricate, its superscription fainter, paler, more aslant, more illegible. It exhaled a strong odour of musk, and was written on paper that glistened like satin. "Dear Frank," it ran, "I shall be in the park to-morrow, at twelve. Look for the pony-carriage. I _want_ you--so no nonsense. Don't fail--there's a good fellow.--Yours truly,--KATE CREMORNE. P.S. If I'm not under the clock, wait there till I come."