“Corrie Glen wins! Corrie Glen wins!” The words pierce to his brain. He has done his best, he cannot do more; he knows this well; yet would to God he could win! “Corrie Glen wins!” Ah! they don’t know the Black Queen. She has answered the boy’s last call; she has made one more magnificent effort; and, shooting ahead of the favourite, passes the post a winner by a neck! What a yell goes up from the ring! Blank deadly consternation is in the faces of the backers. In the stands there is very little cheering. Hardly a soul in all that vast crowd has backed the “dark” black mare. And Sir Reginald Desmond is still standing where we left him. He is deadly pale; his arms are folded on his chest; there is despair in his eyes. “Had a bad race, old chap? I fear we all have,” says a voice at his elbow. He laughs, and turns towards the speaker. This latter starts as he notices the ghastly, haggard look on the young baronet’s face. “Yes—well, yes, haven’t had a good one,” answers Sir Reggie coolly, taking out his cigarette-case and leisurely selecting a cigarette therefrom. “Have a cigarette, Fernley?” “No thanks, Desmond, am just going to have lunch. Wonderful race young Bernie Fontenoy rode there. Won’t the brat be proud?” “Oh! ah! yes, won’t he?” answers Sir Reggie absently. His thoughts have wandered again. He is looking ahead into the black future. Now that it is too late, he is cursing himself for a fool and an idiot. Oh! why did he not take Flora’s advice? The stand in which he is, is nearly empty. Every one is making off to get lunch; in a few minutes it is entirely deserted. He sits on alone in it. The cigarette he had lit so ostentatiously not long since has gone out, but it is still clenched between his teeth. The future _will_ rise to his mind. How can such as he face it? He has never been brought up to do anything; he is ill-read, ill-taught, and ignorant. He has never given his mind to anything but amusing himself; and now if he pays the ring what is justly owing to it he will be a beggar, with nothing to live on and nothing to look forward to but misery, and, in his eyes, disgrace. Poor Sir Reginald! He feels his position acutely, it is burning itself into his brain. He feels that it is past endurance, that _he cannot_ face it. “I’ll go home,” he says wearily to himself. “I can’t face Flora after this; it’s all too dreadful.”