"The next is ours, is it not?" he says; and she smiles at him, and--can it be?--willingly transfers her hand from the heavy's arm to his; and then they dance; and presently he takes her down to the Peytons' carriage and puts her carefully into it, and presses her hand, I think, ever so slightly, and then drives home, beneath the silent stars, with an odd sensation at his heart--half pain, half pleasure--he has never felt before. CHAPTER XVIII. "Known mischiefs have their cure, but doubts have none; And better is despair than friendless hope Mixed with a killing fear."--MAY. It is two o'clock on the following day. Horace,--who came down from town for the ball, and is staying with Dorian,--sauntering leisurely into the smoking-room at Sartoris, finds Branscombe there, overlooking some fishing-tackle. This room is a mingled and hopelessly entangled mass of guns, pipes, whips, spurs, fishing-rods, and sporting pictures; there are, too, a few other pictures that might not exactly come under this head, and a various and most remarkable collection of lounging-chairs. There is a patriarchal sofa, born to create slumber; and an ancient arm-chair, stuffed with feathers and dreams of many sleepers. Over the door stand out the skeleton remains of a horse's head, bleached and ghastly, and altogether hideous, that, even now, reminds its master of a former favorite hunter that had come to a glorious but untimely end upon the hunting-field. A stuffed setter, with very glassy eyes, sits staring, in an unearthly fashion, in one corner. Upon a window-sill a cat sits, blinking lazily at the merry spring sunshine outside. "Are you really going back to town this evening, Horace?" asks the owner of all these gems, in a somewhat gloomy fashion, bending over a fishing line as he speaks. "Yes. I feel I am bound to be back there again as soon as possible." "Business?" "Well, I can hardly say it is exactly press of business," says the candid Horace; "but if a man wants to gain any, he must be on the spot, I take it?" "Quite so. Where have you been all the morning? Sleeping?" "Nothing half so agreeable." By this time Horace is looking at him curiously, and with a gleam in his eyes that is half amusement, half contempt: Dorian, whose head is bent over his work, sees neither the amusement nor the scorn. "I did not go to bed at all. I walked down to to the farms to try to get some fresh air to carry back with me to the stifling city." "Ah! past the mill? I mean in that direction?--towards the upper farms?" "No; I went past Biddulph's," says Horace, easily, half closing his eyes, and Dorian believes him. "It is lighter walking that way; not so hilly. Did you put in a good time last night?" "Rather so. I don't know when I enjoyed an affair of the kind so much."