For yet another hour that patron paces up and down it, absorbed in moody thought. It is hard to draw the picture of this man, when one thinks how otherwise it might have been had the passions of his youth been curbed, his early life disciplined, and his powers for good fostered and encouraged. If the dream of Gloria de Lara be realised, the time will come when character such as this will know an existence no longer; but this can only be when the standard of morality is placed on a higher pedestal, and the laws of Nature are acknowledged and upheld. [Illustration] CHAPTER X. Quitting the presence of Mr. Trackem and Lord Westray, Léonie has hurried to her bedroom, from which the former personage had so unceremoniously summoned her. The bedroom in question is small and plainly furnished. A scant, square piece of carpet covers the middle of the floor. There are two chairs in the room, a tiny iron bedstead, a washhand-stand, and a large wardrobe. This latter article takes up an ungenerous share of the space which the little room affords, but it is evidently an article of some importance, for Léonie goes straight to it and throws it open, displaying to view some half-a-dozen shelves, upon which a number of suits of clothes of varied and multifarious shapes, are neatly arranged. After scrutinising them for a few minutes Léonie selects a strong dark-coloured pair of riding breeches, gaiters to match, and a loose jacket and waistcoat of the same material, which she lays on the bed. To these are quickly added a grey flannel shirt and a complete silk under riding suit. She then proceeds with her toilet, and when dressed looks every inch a comely lad of some seventeen summers, smart, neat, and natty. Her next act is to pack a small saddle portmanteau with a change of underclothing, toilet and washing articles, which completes the outfit of Mr. Trackem’s youthful detective; for Léonie, though a slave, is not unmindful of her personal appearance. She knows she is pretty, and likes to look so, a vanity for which the looking-glass is largely responsible. A small oil lamp burns fitfully in one corner of the room. She fills a tiny kettle with water, and placing it on a miniature stand, sets it to heat above the flame. Then she makes her bed, and tidies up her room with business-like alacrity, and as the kettle begins to hiss, she takes from the chimney-piece a cup and saucer, a small tin of preserved coffee and milk, and a spoon. In a few minutes this Bohemian girl has mixed herself a steaming cupful of the beverage, and abstracting a couple of biscuits from a small paper parcel also on the chimney-piece, proceeds to enjoy her somewhat camp-like meal. But she wastes no time over it. Léonie is essentially a business-like person. She has settled in her mind the exact hour at which she must set out, and she knows she has not many minutes to spare.