rushing towards Newmarket at sixty miles an hour, on the box-seat of a guardsman’s drag, on the rattling fire-engine of an aristocratic amateur Braidwood, on the downs at Epsom--yes, even at the final rush, when every eye is strained to concentrate its power of sight upon one speck of colour, the man’s mind, for ever the veriest slave to follow that will-o’-the-wisp called association, will wander away in spite of him,--to mourn above a baby’s grave, to sit amidst the perfume of honeysuckle and roses in a still summer twilight trifling with the rings on a woman’s hand. There were times when thought would come to Francis Tredethlyn, in spite of all his friend’s watchful care. He would sit at the head of a dinner-table at the Crown and Sceptre, staring vacantly at the frisky wine-bubbles in his shallow glass, and thinking how happy he might have been if Maude had only loved him. Ah, this poor substitute of noise instead of mirth,--this pitiful tinsel of dissipation in place of the pure gold of happiness,--how miserable a mockery it was even at the best! Mr. Lowther generally broke in upon such gloomy reveries as these by calling to the waiter to exchange his friend’s shallow glass for a tumbler. But there are pangs of regret not to be lulled to slumber by all the sparkling wines that were ever grown in the fair champagne country, and Harcourt Lowther sometimes found his work very difficult. But amidst such perpetual hurry and excitement it was only natural that some things should be almost entirely forgotten by Francis Tredethlyn, and amongst these forgotten things were the sorrows of his missing cousin. The Gray’s-Inn lawyers had _carte blanche_, and could have employed all the detective machinery in London in a search for Susan Tredethlyn, _alias_ Susan Lesley, had they so chosen; but your intensely respectable family solicitor is the slowest of slow coaches, and Messrs. Kursdale and Scardon contented themselves with the insertion of an occasional advertisement in the second column of the “Times” supplement, informing Susan Lesley that she might hear of something to her advantage on applying at their office; and further offering a liberal reward for any information respecting the above-mentioned lady.