"I seem to be crushed," exclaimed the young man, rising and walking hastily up and down the room. "Everything goes wrong with me, and I believe I am going mad. Perhaps it is fate," he said, gloomily, "and how to save that poor girl from wretchedness! Heigho! Joby, old fellow, I wish I could forget the unpleasant things, and then perhaps there would be some comfort in life. "Now, what's to be done?" he cried, as his eyes fell again upon the newspaper. "I cannot bear this. Here's a whole month since I have heard from or seen poor little Maude, for I haven't the heart to try any more of those clandestine tricks." He sat down and thought over the past month and its incidents, taking out and re-reading a note with Lady Barmouth's crest upon it, in which her ladyship very curtly requested that Mr Melton would refrain from calling in Portland Place, for after what had occurred she could only look upon his visits as an insult. She wrote this at the request of Lord Barmouth. "That is a monstrous fib," said Charley Melton, angrily, "for the amiable little old man was always most friendly. But what shall I do? I must see her; I must hear from her. They are forcing this on with the poor girl, and it is like blasting her young life. "Tom!" he ejaculated, after a pause. "No; he has not answered either of my last letters. There is something wrong there." He sat thinking again. "Confound it all! It is so contemptible. I hate it, but what can I do? I must send a note through that Frenchman. Pah! how I loathe this backstairs work, but what can I do? I am debarred the front stairs, which are open to that confounded _roue_ Wilters." He stamped up and down the room again till there was a knock at the door. "Come in," he cried, and a groom entered. "Please, sir, master's compliments, and--and--I beg your pardon, sir, he'd be much obliged if you wouldn't stamp up and down the room so. He's got a bad headache, and you're just over him." "Was that the message your master sent?" exclaimed Melton, for the groom was the servant of an acquaintance who had chambers on the floor below. "Well, sir--no, sir--not exactly, sir," said the man, suppressing an inclination to smile. "What did he say then?" "Please, sir, he said, `Run up and ask Mr Melton if he's going mad,' and he shied one of his boots at me." "Tell him yes, raving mad," said Melton savagely; and the man went down. "It's fate, I suppose," he said at last: "and it seems as if I am to give her up." For from that fatal day when the toy terrier had been slain Joby had stood in the same category as his master--Lady Maude was not at home to the canine caller, and after many efforts to obtain access to his mistress, Charley Melton was nearly in despair. He had tried the post, and his letters had been returned. He had tried the servants and mutual friends, but given up both in disgust for Maude's sake, being unwilling to cause her fresh anxieties and pain.