“Come, Zai, my own, own Zai! Speak to me, tell me once more that you love me, that no one will ever make you forget me. It drives me wild to think that those fellows at Sandilands will be near you, and I away.” “You will have--Crystal Meredyth!” she whispers tremulously, then she breaks into a passion of tears, each of which stab him to the heart. He kisses them off, and holds her to him fondly, and what with caresses and love words, draws the smiles back to her mouth, and the pink colour to her cheek. “Zai, will you swear to be as true to me as I shall be true to you?” “I swear,” she replies unhesitatingly. “And you won’t let those fellows, Delaval and Hamilton, dare to make love to you?” “I would rather _die_, Carl.” “I believe you would, my child,” he answers in a trustful voice, “and now let us say good-night here, though I am going back to the house to show myself.” “Good-night!” And, like Romeo and Juliet, they find parting is such sweet sorrow that it is some moments before it takes place. And when Zai leaves him, he murmurs to himself, truthfully, honestly: “My God, how I love her!” Ten minutes afterwards, he is valsing to the strain of “Love’s Dreamland” with Crystal Meredyth, and whispering low to her, and Crystal, who has set him up as a hero to worship, blushes and smiles with intense satisfaction. “What a flirt that Conway is,” Lady Beranger soliloquises, as she watches him covertly. “I do not believe he really presumes to think of Zai, but it won’t do to have him interfering with Delaval. What a charming couple they make,” she adds with intense satisfaction, as Zai floats by with Lord Delaval, but she does not mark how _distraite_ her daughter looks, and that the good-looking peer’s soft nothings fall on stoney ground, and neither does she know that when the ball is over, Zai goes to bed and cries bitterly as she remembers that Crystal Meredyth is lovely and that men always like pretty women. [Illustration] CHAPTER II. SANDILANDS. “Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart, ’Tis woman’s whole existence.” It must be a rose-tinted existence. So outsiders fancy as they look at Sandilands from under the shadowy light and shade that falls across some mossy bank, but before they venture an opinion on the subject, let them pause. The judging of other folks’ lives by their external surroundings is the most deceptive work possible. Sandilands is a paradise, but, like the original Paradise, it has a serpent crawling over its flowers--nay, it has more than one. “Going down to Sandilands just for a breath of fresh air, you know, after the stuffiness of Town,” Lady Beranger imparts to the Dowager Marchioness of Damesbury. But the Dowager knows better. She knows that Lady Beranger delights in the stuffiness of Town, especially in the season, and that Sandilands is only a decoy duck for Lord Delaval.