'But surely, dear Lady Lesbia, you won't marry Mr. Smithson, if you don't love him?' 'Do you suppose love has anything to do with marriages in society?' 'Oh, Lady Lesbia, it would be so unkind to him, so cruel to yourself.' 'Cruel to myself. Yes, I am cruel to myself. I had the chance of happiness a year ago, and I lost it. I have the chance of happiness now--yes, of consummate bliss--and haven't the courage to snatch at it. Take off this horrid gown, Kibble; my head is splitting: I shan't go to dinner.' 'Oh, Lady Lesbia, you are treading on the pearl embroidery,' remonstrated poor Kibble, as Lesbia kicked the new gown from under her feet. 'What does it matter!' she exclaimed with a bitter little laugh. 'It has not been paid for--perhaps it never will be.' The dinner was silent and gloomy. It was as if a star had been suddenly blotted out of the sky. Smithson, ordinarily so hospitable, had been too much disturbed in mind to ask any of his friends to stay to dinner; so there were only Lady Kirkbank, who was too tired to be lively, and Montesma, who was inclined to be thoughtful. Lesbia's absence, and the idea that she was ill, gave the feast almost a funereal air. After dinner Smithson and Montesma sat on deck, smoking their cigars, and lazily watching the lights on sea, and the lights on shore; these brilliant in the foreground, those dim in the distance. 'You can telegraph to your Rio Janeiro friend to-morrow morning, if you like,' said Smithson, presently, 'and tell him to send a first-rate skipper and crew. Lady Lesbia has made up her mind to see St. Malo Regatta, and with such a sacred charge I can't be too careful.' 'I'll wire before eight o'clock to-morrow,' answered Montesma, 'You have decided wisely. Your respectable English Wilkinson is an excellent man--but nothing would surprise me less than his reducing your _Cayman_ to matchwood in the next gale.' CHAPTER XL. A NOTE OF ALARM. That strange scene in the old house at Fellside made a profound impression upon Lord Hartfield. He tried to disguise his trouble, and did all in his power to seem gay and at perfect ease in his wife's company; but his mind was full of anxiety, and Mary loved him too well to be for a moment in doubt as to his feelings. 'There is something wrong, Jack,' she said, while they were breakfasting at a table in the verandah, with the lake and the bills in front of them and the sweet morning air around them. 'You try to talk and to be lively, but there is a little perpendicular wrinkle in your forehead which I know as well as the letters of the alphabet, and that little line means worry. I used to see it in the old days, when you were breaking your heart for Lesbia. Why cannot you be frank and confide in me. It is your duty, sir, as my husband.' 'Is it my duty to halve my burdens as well as my joys? How do I know if those girlish shoulders are strong enough to bear the weight of them?'