“The future! I laugh now when I see I have written that word. There is no future, Andria Heathcote, alias Holbeach, for such women as you; if you dare but touch the smallest joy that may be offered you a hand will come from the past when you least expect it and snatch the new wine from your lips. “‘This is your solace and your reward, That have drained life’s dregs from a broken shard,’ “Good-night, Andria, and no dreams to you! “May you do your work and live decently, till such time as your story comes out!” CHAPTER IX. ON BOARD THE YACHT. Mr. Egerton sat in the smoking-room of the steam-yacht _Flora_ and reflected--it was the first day the sea had favored reflection--on his plans. They had given him more trouble than anything for sixteen years, but this very elaboration of detail pleased the man. He was a very cruel person, and a very cautious one, or he might have solved all his difficulties more easily and inexpensively. But wonderful as his luck had been lately, he was not out of the wood yet. He took up a tumbler of whisky and soda, and watched the mounting bubbles as if he were watching the workings of his own mind. “First,” he mused, “there was getting out of the power of that woman in the convent. She can never threaten me now, to any effect; or turn on me. I know nothing of any girl. She cannot say there ever was one. She never could have, really. Second, there were those letters. Raimond is an ass, but if it hadn’t been for him I never should have stayed at Erceldonne, or come across that girl with the lamplighter. That saved me from having to scorn all England and from having to trust detectives--who retire and write books. And the ‘Mrs. Fuller’ comedy was lucky; it prevented my appearing in any way. And ‘Mrs. Fuller,’ having played her part, will never bother her head about what happened to her charge. If she did, she would never connect ‘Mr. Egerton,’ the governess, and his ward, with Lord Erceldonne’s queer ‘fancy.’” He laughed aloud. And then he thought of that diplomatic epistle of Mother Felicitas’, that had been so futile a lie.