"I am to understand, then," he said, with quiet scorn, "that you came here this evening by your own appointment to do me a service. Is that so?" He had roused her at last. "Understand, think what you will," she said, in a low, strange voice; "let there be no parley between us. I wanted to see you and sent for you, and you are here, let that suffice. You wish to prevent the marriage of Lord Leycester and _the lady_ whom we saw him with at this spot. You speak confidently of your power to do so; you will have a speedy opportunity of testing that power, for Lord Leycester intends marrying her to-morrow, or at latest the next day." He did not start, neither did he turn pale, but he looked at her calmly, fixedly; she knew that her shaft had told home, and she stood and watched and enjoyed. "How do you know this?" he asked, quietly, in a very low voice. She paused. It was a bitter humiliation to have to admit to this man, whom she regarded as the dust under her feet, that she, the Lady Lenore, had stooped so low as to steal and read a letter addressed to another person, and that person her rival--but it had to be admitted. "I know it because he wrote and made arrangements for her flight and their clandestine meeting." "How do you know it?" he asked, and his voice was dry and harsh. She paused a moment. "Because I saw the letter," she said, eying him defiantly. He smiled--even in his agony and fury he smiled at her humiliation. "You have indeed done much in my service," he said, with a sneer. "Yours!" came fiercely to her lips; then she made a gesture of contempt, as if he were beneath her resentment. "You saw the letter," he said. "What were the arrangements? When and where was she to meet him? Curse him!" he ground out between his teeth. "She is to go to London by the eleven o'clock train to-morrow, and he will meet her and take her to 24 Bruton Street," she said, curtly. He choked back the oath that came to his lips. "Meet him, and alone!" he muttered, the sweat breaking out on his forehead, his lips writhing. "No, not alone; a boy, her cousin, is to accompany them." "Ah!" he said, and a malignant smile curled his lips; "I can scotch that small snake; but him--Lord Leycester!" and his hands clinched. He took a turn in the narrow path, and then came back to her. "And afterward?" he asked. "What is to follow?" She shook her head with contemptuous indifference, and leant against the wooden rail, looking down at the bubbling, seething water. "I do not know. I imagine, as the boy accompanies her, that he will get a special license, and--marry her. But, perhaps"--and she glanced round at his white face with a malicious smile--"perhaps the boy is a mere blind, and Lord Leycester will dispose of him." "And then?" "Then," she said, slowly. "Well, Lord Leycester's character is tolerably well known; in all probability he will not find it necessary to make the girl--I beg your pardon! the young lady--the future Countess of Wyndward."