The bride and bridegroom took their departure for Dover en route for Rome: Lady Adela having condescended to express a wish to visit the Eternal City. CHAPTER VI. ALL DOWN-HILL. The hot rays of the June sun lay on the west-end streets one Thursday at midday, and on three men of fashion who were strolling through them arm-in-arm. He who walked in the middle was a young man turned six-and-twenty, but not looking it; a good-natured, easy-going, attractive young fellow, who won his way with every one. It was Robert Dalrymple. From two to three years had elapsed since his father's death; and, alas, they had not been made years of wisdom to him. Impulsive, generous, hasty, improvident, and very fond of London life, Robert Dalrymple had been an easy prey to Satan's myrmidons in the shape of designing men. These two gentlemen, with him today, were not precisely genii of good. One of them, Colonel Haughton, was a stout, elderly man, with a burly manner, and a mass of iron-grey hair adorning his large head; his black eyes stood out, bold and hard, through his gold-rimmed glasses. Mr. Piggott, much younger, was little and thin, with a stoop in the shoulders, and one of the craftiest countenances ever seen, to those who could read it. Suddenly Robert stood still, withdrew his arm from Mr. Piggott's, and gazed across the street. "What now, Dalrymple?" "There's my cousin Oscar! If ever I saw him in my life, that is he. What brings him to town? I will wish you good-day and be after him." "To meet tonight," quickly cried Colonel Haughton. "To meet tonight, of course. No fear of my not coming for my revenge. Adieu to both of you until then." It is a sad story that you have to hear of Robert Dalrymple. How shall I tell it? And yet, while running into this pitfall, and tumbling into that, the young man's intentions were so good and himself so sanguine that one's heart ached for him. In his chivalrous care for his mother, the first thing Robert did, on coming home from his father's funeral, was to break off the engagement with Mary Lynn. Or, rather, to postpone it--if you can understand such a thing. "We shall not be able to marry for many a year, Mary," he said, the tears that had fallen during the burial-service still glistening in his eyes, "and so you had better take back your troth. Moat Grange is no longer mine, for I cannot and will not turn my mother and sisters out of it; I promised _him_ I would not: and so--and so--there's nothing to be done but part."