Leycester and Lord Charles passed out and down the stairs. The sound of laughter and music floated faintly through the parted curtains of the drawing-room. "What shall I say to them?" asked Lord Charles, nodding toward the room. Leycester smiled, grimly. "Tell them," he said, "that I have gone to town _on business_," and he laughed quietly. Then suddenly he stopped as if a thought had struck him, and glanced at his watch. "One moment," he said, and ran lightly up the stairs to Lilian's room. Her maid met him at the door. "Her ladyship is asleep," she said. Leycester hesitated, then he signed to her to open the door, and entered. Lady Lilian lay extended on her couch, her eyes closed, a faint, painful smile on her face. He stood and looked at her a moment, then he bent and lightly touched her lips with his. "Good-bye, Lil," he murmured. "You at least will understand." Then he ran down, putting on his gloves, and had one foot on the dogcart step when Lady Wyndward came into the hall. "Leycester," she said, "where are you going?" He turned and looked at her rather wistfully. Lord Charles fingered the letter in his pocket, and wished himself in Peru. "To London, mother," he said. "Why?" she asked. It was an unusual question for her, who rarely asked him his intentions, or the why and wherefore, and he hesitated. "On business," he said. She looked at the flushed face and the fire smoldering in his eyes, and then at Lord Charles, who jingled the money in his pocket, and whistled softly, with an air of pure abstraction. "What is it?" she asked, and an unusual look of trouble and doubt came into her eyes. "Nothing that need trouble you, mother," he said. "I shall be back--" he stopped; when should he be back?--"soon," he added. Then he stooped and kissed her. Lady Wyndward looked up into his eyes. "Don't go, Leycester," she murmured. Almost roughly, in his impatience, he put her arm from him. "You don't know what you ask," he said. Then in a gentle tone he said "Good-bye," and sprang into the cart. The horse rose for a moment, then put his fore feet down and went off like a rocket under the sharp cut of the whip, and Lady Wyndward, with a sigh of apprehension, turned to where Lord Charles had stood. Had stood; for he had seized the moment of departure to steal off. He had helped Leycester in many a mad freak, had stood in with him in many a wild adventure, which had cost them much after trouble and no small amount of money, but Lord Charles had a shrewd suspicion that this which he was asked to assist in was the climax of all that had gone before. But he felt that he must do it. As we have said, there were times when words were of as little use as chaff with Leycester, and this was one of them. Ruefully, but unshaken in his devotion, he went up-stairs for his hat and stick, and sauntered down, still wishing that he could have been in Peru.