Sir Everard went wearily to his room. The thought of the feather bed and the gruel, of a selfish withdrawal from further association with what was like to end in sordid tragedy tempted him perhaps, but he did not yield to it. The girl’s smile haunted him. It had been so brightly innocent; and he was haunted, too, by the last memory of her face, stricken with astonishment, quivering with joy. However she might fall, it would not be through light-mindedness. The folly, the misery, was deep rooted in her poor heart. He made a careful toilet, and went down the slippery oak stairs, leaning on his gold-headed cane, looking a very great personage indeed, delicately austere and nobly haughty. Alas! Pamela never so much as lifted her radiant head when he came into the eating-room. She was seated beside her gallant at the end of the table in close conversation--that whispered, blushing, laughing, sighing conversation of lovers--and if the roof had fallen over them, Sir Everard thought, the two would scarce have noticed it, so absorbed were they in each other. The young man had ordered champagne, and the girl’s glass was filled, but the bubbling wine had barely been touched. Another intoxication, more deadly and more sure, was working through her veins. The old philosopher, seeing her condition, resigned for the moment all thought of interference, and sat down to his bottle of claret and bowl of broth. Hardly, however, had he broken his hot roll, than the room was invaded by fresh arrivals; a young woman, wrapped in furs, conducted by a gentleman who had not removed his travelling coat, and kept his hat pressed on his brows; a personage who entered with an intolerable arrogance as if the place belonged to him, who ordered champagne and supper for the lady, and fresh horses for his coach, in a voice which rang like the crack of a whip. He could not wait; the servers must bustle. A guinea each to the ostlers if they harnessed within ten minutes. “And, hark ye, sirrah, a bottle of your best Sillery, and----” “Surely I know this autocratic fellow,” thought Sir Everard, and as the traveller drew his companion with an imperative sweep of his arm about her, to the end of the table opposite to that at which Mr. Bellairs and his Dulcinea were seated. “My Lord Sanquhar!” cried Sir Everard, “by all that’s outrageous! And who in the name of pity is his victim now?” That the two were lovers, of a stage considerably more advanced than the poor milliner and her Beau, was obvious to the onlooker, and as my Lord Sanquhar now tore his hat from his head, to dash the snow that covered it into the fire, where it hissed and spluttered like a curse, the young woman who accompanied him let herself fall on to the settle and turned a look of darkling challenge, of brooding suspicion, into the room.