It was very bitter--the cup had been so near her lips, when an adverse destiny had dashed it from her. The lady's grief was painfully sincere. She did not waste one lamentation on her lover's sad fate, but she most bitterly regretted her own loss of a rich husband. She watched and hoped day after day for the promised visit from Douglas Dale, but he did not come. Every day during visiting hours she wore her most becoming toilets; she arranged her small drawing-room with the studied carelessness of an elegant woman; she seated herself in her most graceful attitudes every time the knocker heralded the advent of a caller; but it was all so much wasted labour. The only guest whom she cared to see was not among those morning visitors; and Lydia's heart began to be oppressed by a sense of despair. "Well, Gordon, have you heard anything of Douglas Dale?" she asked her brother, day after day. One day he came home with a very gloomy face, and when she uttered the usual question, he answered her in his gloomiest tone. "I've heard something you'll scarcely care to learn," he said, "as it must sound the death-knell of all your hopes in that quarter. You know, Douglas Dale is a member of the Phoenix, as well as the Forum. I don't belong to the Phoenix, as you also know, but I meet Dale occasionally at the Forum. Yesterday I lunched with Lord Caversham, a member of the Phoenix, and an acquaintance of Dale's; and from him I learned that Douglas Dale has publicly announced his intended marriage with Paulina Durski." "Impossible!" exclaimed Lydia. She had heard of Paulina and the villa at Fulham from her brother, and she hated the lovely Austrian for the beauty and the fascination which won her a kind of renown amongst the fops and lordlings--the idlers and spendthrifts of the fashionable clubs. "It cannot be true," cried Miss Graham, flushing crimson with anger. "It is one of Lord Caversham's absurd stories; and I dare say is without the slightest foundation. I cannot and will not believe that Douglas Dale would throw himself away upon such a woman as this Madame Durski." "You have never seen her?" "Of course not." "Then don't speak so very confidently," said Captain Graham, who was malicious enough to take some pleasure in his sister's discomfiture. "Paulina Durski is one of the handsomest women I ever saw; not above five-and-twenty years of age--elegant, fascinating, patrician--a woman for whose sake a wiser man than Douglas Dale might be willing to sacrifice himself." "I will see Mr. Dale," exclaimed Lydia. "I will ascertain from his own lips whether there is any foundation for this report." "How will you contrive to see him?" "You must arrange that for me. You can invite him to dinner." "I can invite him; but the question is whether he will come. Perhaps, if you were to write him a note, he would be more flattered than by any verbal invitation from me."