“My dear boy----” Lady Haigh began, then, hoping that he had not observed the slip, altered it to, “My dear Major North, you must please explain yourself a little. Who is the lady to whom you refer--not Miss Keeling?” “Yes, it is Miss Keeling,” said Dick, rather guiltily. “But is Miss Keeling unhappy?” “How you women hang together!” he remarked, with some bitterness. “You must have seen it, Lady Haigh, and yet you won’t say a word to help me out. I feel as if I had no business to talk about it, even to you--and yet you are the only other woman here--and it isn’t as though I was betraying her confidence, for she never told me. She only let me see unmistakably----” “I am afraid you won’t believe me,” interrupted Lady Haigh, “but I really don’t understand you. If I can do anything whatever to help either you or Miss Keeling, you may count upon me, as I said just now; but please don’t think I want to pry into your private affairs.” “I’m a fearful bear,” said Dick, penitently, “and it’s awfully good of you to be willing to take so much trouble about us, when Sir Dugald is ill, and you have so much to be anxious about. I’ll make a clean breast of the whole thing, for I am quite at the end of my tether, and I can’t see what to do. It doesn’t signify what happens to me, you know, but----” “Do you know that you are frightening me, Major North? What desperate enterprise has Miss Keeling got on hand that you should talk about her and yourself in this strain?” “It’s nothing of that kind. It is only that I want to see her happy. Perhaps you don’t know that for some time lately I have been beginning to hope that one day she might get to care for me?” Lady Haigh smothered a smile, and nodded assent. “Well, it was on the day that the treaty was signed that I found out all at once that it was Stratford she cared for.” “Mr Stratford?” cried Lady Haigh, with a start. “Are you quite certain?” “I had no idea of anything of the kind until she turned on me and asked why I had let him go to the Palace to save her, and said she would never speak to me again if anything happened to him. I couldn’t mistake that, could I?” he asked, with a dreary smile. “It was all clear to me at once, and I can’t tell you what an arrant and unmitigated and contemptible brute I felt for having let him go. I’m sure I should never have had the face to go near her again if he had got killed.” “Well, but wasn’t it all right when he came back?” “No, indeed; it is all wrong. He doesn’t care for her; he told me so himself before he went. Now, you know, no one can be astonished at her caring for him, he is such an out-and-out good fellow; but if he doesn’t care for her, what is to be done? That is what I am addling my brains over, and if you can suggest anything, Lady Haigh, I shall bless you for ever.” “What was your own idea as to what ought to be done?”