“Damned clever and diabolical, Trackem, if you want to know the truth,” answers Lord Westray a shade bitterly. He has fallen pretty low, but this seems indeed the lowest depth of the abyss into which he is invited to plunge, for the being who is an accessory before the fact is every whit as villainous as the being performing the deed. Of course he knows this. “Clever, I grant you, my lord. It is my business to be so. Diabolical I demur to. All is fair in love and war. But pardon me, excuse a moment’s absence,” and Mr. Trackem, as if struck by a sudden idea, rises and leaves the room. Lord Westray rises, too, and begins pacing up and down it. There is a dark, angry look in his eyes, and a cruel smile on his thick lips. “All fair in love and war,” he exclaims savagely; “that is a true saying. I loved her—yes, I did love Speranza once, but she scorned and flouted me, and I could not forget that. Even after I married her I loved her, I believe, though she complained that I treated her cruelly. And what if I did? She was only a woman, and my wife. What business had she to complain? What business had she to take the law into her own hands, and go off with that fellow? Ah! I think she counted without her host there, but I was revenged,—yes, yes, I took ample revenge. And then, when she might have made it up, when I offered to re-marry her, she flung me from her path, and that girl of hers, whom I thought then was a man, ordered me out of the house. Ah! but I think there again I have come off the victor. I think it is I who have scored. The world believes me dead; Hector D’Estrange, now Gloria de Lara, is my murderer. If we lay hands on her, the Government is bound to make her pay the full penalty of the law. It will break Speranza’s heart, and I, I shall triumph and be revenged. None shall flout or scorn _me_ without rueing it. By God! no one ever shall.” The laugh is a horrid one with which these last words are accompanied. It is hard to believe the man a human being. Character of this description is false to Nature, surely? Yes, but the education which produced it was false and unnatural too. Human character depends greatly on early teaching. The parent has a heavy responsibility in the moulding of youth’s first impressions. Lady Westray, if from the grave you could arise and look upon your handiwork, perhaps even you, shallow, vain, heartless as you were in life, might shudder and repent! At this stage the door opens, readmitting Mr. Trackem. He walks over to his seat by the fire and reoccupies it.