"Is there not?" he said, in a low voice. "You have appealed to her. There is still one other to appeal to; I shall seek him." She looked up, not with alarm but with solemn conviction. "Do not," she said, "unless you wish to add to her sorrow! No, Ley, if you strike at him, the blow must reach her." "She told you that?" "Yes; by word, by look. No, Ley, there is no hope there. You cannot reach him except through her, and you will spare her that. 'Tell him,' she said, 'that any effort he makes will add to my misery. Tell him that I pray we may never meet again.'" She paused a moment. "Ley, I know no more of the cause than you, but I know this, that she is right." He stood looking down at her, his face working, then at last he answered: "You are a brave girl, Lil," he said. "You must go now; even you cannot help me to bear this. 'Pray that we may never meet again,' and this was to have been our marriage day!" CHAPTER XXXIV. I have carefully avoided describing Lord Leycester Wyndward as a "good" man. If to be generous, single-minded, impatient of wrong and pitiful of the wronged; if to be blessed, cursed with the capacity for loving madly and passionately; if to be without fear, either moral or physical, be heroic, then he was a hero; but I am afraid it cannot be said that he was "good." Before many weeks had elapsed since his parting with Stella, the world had decided that he was indeed very bad. It is scarcely too much to say that his name was the red rag which was flourished in the eyes of those righteous, indignant bulls whose mission in life it is to talk over their fellow-creatures' ill deeds and worry them. One mad exploit after another was connected with his name, and it soon came to pass that no desperate thing was done within the circle of the higher class, but he was credited with being the ringleader, or at least with having a hand in it. It was said that at that select and notorious club, "The Rookery," Lord Leycester was the most desperate of gamblers and persistent of losers. Rumor went so far as to declare that even the Wyndward estates could not stand the inroads which his losses at the gaming table were making. It was rumored, and not contradicted, that he had "plunged" on the turf, and that his stud was one of the largest and most expensive in England. The society papers were full of insinuating paragraphs hinting at the wildness of his career, and prophesying its speedy and disastrous termination. He was compared with the lost characters of past generations--likened to Lord Norbury, the Marquis of Waterford, and similar dissipated individuals. His handsome face and tall, thin, but still stalwart figure, had become famous, and people nudged each other and pointed him out when he passed along the fashionably-frequented thoroughfares. His rare appearance in the haunts of society occasioned the deepest interest and curiosity.