The other collateral feeling which he alluded to was, hatred towards Lady Dora, the most intense; for he felt the unkindness of her family had left Minnie exposed to all his own ungovernable passions; and she had been the first to place her cousin in an equivocal point of view with Lord Randolph. But these were feelings of after hours: we must return to the ball. "Thank you," said Lady Lysson, pressing his hand, to thank him for his reconciliation with Lord Randolph. "Now give me your arm." And they passed on. Persons talk of suffering; but could there be any to surpass Tremenhere's this evening? Obliged to listen to, and join in amusement and gaiety! Among all the masks there, there was not one more complete in disguising, than his face; for no one could have guessed, in the unconcerned laughter which at times crossed it, that it was as sunshine on ice--all cold and frozen beneath. Lady Dora felt extremely piqued and galled at his manner. She had hoped for a triumph for her pride--vanity, it was not--in seeing him frown in jealous rage upon Lord Randolph; or else favour her with some of those sarcasms which spoke of vitality, even while they wounded. But nothing of the kind occurred. He was courteous in the extreme, witty, gay, and most attentive and polite to herself--nothing more. Only one person there read his heart, and keenly felt for that man, laughing over the tomb in his heart; for Lord Randolph had seen that conviction had been the inspiration of a moment, born of a glance at his own unshrinking face. Moore, in speaking of a heart, said, "Grief brought all its music forth." So it was with Lord Randolph. The shock he received on hearing of Minnie's death, called to vigour and beauty all the dormant qualities of a really sterling heart; and made him capable of feeling deeply for the man, whose hopeless woe was as an open page before him. In the course of their rambles through that crowd, Lady Dora found herself on Tremenhere's arm, whose eye was searching every where for his mysterious domino. In spite of himself, she pre-occupied his mind; but amidst the dozens there, he failed to see any one at all resembling her, either in dress or that nameless grace perceptible in every undulation, of her unrelieved disguise. "You are pre-occupied, Mr. Tremenhere," she said, after half a dozen absent replies had escaped his lips. "Pardon me; I am boyish enough to be amused at this scene." "One would not think it, for I never beheld a more seeking, anxious countenance--possibly you would prefer solitude." "Solitude, and here? Lady Dora." "Yes--Byron's." "Oh! 'with some sweet spirit for my minister?' Nay, if that were the case, where find a fairer than the one who for awhile blesses me?" and he almost pressed her arm; and, aroused by her questioning, became Tremenhere as the world had made him.