Mosscrop turned the spring-lock noiselessly, and drew the door open with caressing gentleness. His eyes had intuitively prepared themselves to discern the slender form of Vestalia in the dim light of the passage. They beheld instead, with bewildered repulsion, a burly masculine bulk. Wandering upward in angry confusion from the level on which they had expected her dear face, they took in the fatuous, moon-like visage of Lord Drumpipes. “Dear God!” groaned David, in frank abandonment to disgust. “I came up quietly this time,” said the Earl. “You made such a row about my being noisy last night, I thought to myself, ‘Now, anything to please Davie! I’ll steal up like a mouse in list-slippers.’” David scowled angry impatience at him. “Who the deuce cares what _you_ do?” he demanded, roughly. “You might have marched up with a Salvation Army band, for all it matters to me.” “Ah,” said Drumpipes, placidly pushing his way past Mosscrop through the open door. “Well, give me a drink, Davie, man, and then tell me all about it. Where may the lady be at the present moment?” Mosscrop came in, and produced another glass with a gloomy air. He watched the Earl seat himself in the biggest chair and help himself from the decanter, and light his pipe, all in moody silence. “She’s gone away,” he said at last, coldly. “And a good job, too!” remarked the other. “Distrust all yellow-hair, Davie! Have you been in my place and seen what that woman did? There was my Athabaska moose actually torn from the wall, and pulled to bits on the floor! It’s a matter of fifty shillings, or even more, Davie. Considering what you’d already spent on her, I call that heartless behaviour on her part. She must be a bad sort indeed to take all you would give her, and fool you to the top of your bent, and then wantonly destroy property that she knew you’d have to make good, before she took French leave. Ah, women are not given that kind of hair for nothing! You’re well out of a thankless mess, Davie.” Mosscrop looked musingly at his friend. He smiled a little to himself, and then sighed as well. A calmer temper returned to him. “I don’t take your view of it, Archie,” he said, almost gently. “I have been as sad about it as a child who’s lost its pet, but I’m less disconsolate than I was. Some compensations occur to me--and besides, I have a letter from her. It came to-night, and from its tone----”