“Forgive me, mother,” he pleaded, conscience-smitten, “but, indeed, it nearly drives me distracted to think that I may not be able to win Gladys; while he, that beggar without even a name, has won her without an effort.” “Has won? Then they are engaged?” “Yes.” “What folly, Everet? I would respect myself too much to cry after a girl who was already pledged,” said Mrs. Mapleson, scornfully, and with flashing eyes. His face flamed angrily. “I tell you, you cannot understand!” he cried. “At all events, whether I win or not, I will do my utmost to separate them. I detest him so thoroughly, I will never allow him to triumph where I have failed.” He stole from the room with these words, and that night he left Newport for Vue de l’Eau, where he arrived three days later, and found his father at home keeping bachelors’ hall in fine style, with half a dozen servants to attend him. Colonel Mapleson greeted his son with a heartiness which testified to the deep affection which he bore him, though he expressed some surprise that he should have returned at that season, when he might have been enjoying the cool breezes of Newport, and had his pick of the fashionable belles who thronged the place. “I have not been at home for a long time, you know,” Everet responded, carelessly, “and somehow had a peculiar longing to get back to the old place. Mother rebelled at being left, but I promised to send you on to take my place.” Colonel Mapleson shrugged his shoulders. He was not particularly fond of gay society, and was never anxious to dance attendance upon his fashionable wife, although he was proud of her beauty, and the admiration and attention she received wherever she went. “I have not been in Newport for a good many years,” he remarked, as he passed his coffee-cup to be filled for the third time; for they were at breakfast. “Surely you would enjoy the trip then,” Everet replied. “Newport has changed greatly; it has become, literally, an island of palaces. You ought to run up there for a little change during mother’s stay.” “Well, I’ll think about it; but you will be lonely if I run off just as you come home.” “Never mind me; mother needs and wants you, and I have been in so much excitement of late that I shall be glad to be quiet for awhile,” the young man remarked, carelessly. This was such a strange desire on the part of one who had been accustomed to frequent all the gay resorts during the summer holidays, while, too, he was looking far from well or happy, that Colonel Mapleson shot a searching glance into his son’s face, and began to suspect that he had been disappointed in some affair of the heart, and had come home to conceal it. “That is a new freak, isn’t it?” he asked, quietly.