could fully understand that she had made silent atonement for what she imagined to be an outburst of groundless jealousy. An extraordinary change had come over Mitford within the last few days. Before the picnic, and at the picnic, he had been enthralled, _entêté_, eagerly waiting for Mrs. Hammond's every look, every word, and scarcely able to behave with decency to anybody else. Since then he had acted quite differently. Had his conscience smitten him for neglecting his wife? No; Laurence did not believe in sudden conscience-smites with such men as Sir Charles Mitford; and he had further noticed that though there was no open flirtation, there was plenty of eye-telegraphy of a very peculiar and significant kind. They had come to some understanding evidently, for Mrs. Hammond now seldom addressed her conversation to her host, but kept her hand in by practising on the susceptible heart of Major Winton, or by coquetting with some of the officers who were invariably to be found dining at Redmoor. She had tried to _réchauffer_ a little of the old story with Laurence, but had encountered something so much more marked than mere disinclination, that she suspended operations at once. However, be this as it might, the necessity for Alsager's stay at Redmoor, even judged by his own peculiar notions, was at an end. The Dollamore question never had been mooted; the Hammond difficulty seemed entirely in abeyance. What further need was there for him to keep watch and ward over the Redmoor household? He could be back in town as soon as they could, go where they might; _something_ would occur during the season, he thought, and he might as well be there on guard; but that was a matter of only a few hours from wherever he might happen to be. Whither should he go, then? Not back to London--that was impossible. The week or two he had passed there had thoroughly sickened him of London for some time to come. Paris? No, he thought not! The _bals d'opéra_ would be on then,--Frisotte and Rigolette, Celestine and Mogador, Brididi and the Reine Pomaré--O yes, he knew it all; it was a very long time since those exercitations of the _cancan_, rebuked by the _sergents-de-ville_ in a low grumble of "_Pas si fort! pas si fort! point du télégraphe!_" had afforded him the slightest pleasure. Leicestershire? No, though he had purchased Sir Launcelot, and from merely that short experience of him at Acton, felt sure that he would "show them the way"--no, not Leicestershire this year, he thought, nor anywhere else, unless he went down to Knockholt to see his father. Yes, by Jove! he ought to have done that long since, and now he would do it at once.