She thought of Sir Laurence Alsager at once. She had yet for him a remnant of what she imagined was love, but what was really thwarted passion. Her feelings were stronger for him than for any other man; and he had large wealth, and a good old family title, and the good opinion of the world. When, after his interview with her, she saw the utter futility of her plans so far as he was concerned, she was enraged, but by no means defeated. The cast must be made in another direction, and at once. Prince Tchernigow was in town; she knew it, for she had had more than one note from him during her seclusion in the country, and she knew that Tchernigow was hanging on in town on the chance of seeing her. This flashed across her the moment Laurence had quitted her, and her heart gave a great leap. That was the man! He was a prince; he was three times as rich as Alsager, and was known in the best society of every capital in Europe. Life with him as his wife would not be spent buried two-thirds of the year in a great gaunt country-place, where interest in the Sunday-schools and the old women and the clergyman's charities were the excitements; life with him would be one round of gaiety, in which she would not be a follower, but a leader. He had been madly in love with her two years before; and from what she knew of his nature, she believed the passion still remained there. That could be easily ascertained. She would write him a note, bidding him to come and see her. Tchernigow came at once. He had not been with Laura ten minutes before her sharp eyes had looked into his heart and read its secrets so far as she was concerned. He was chafing under a latent passion, a thwarted wish. When, just at the close of their companionship at Baden two years ago, he had ventured to make open protestation of his devotion to her, and she had turned on him with great dignity and snubbed him mercilessly, he had bowed and left her, cool and collected indeed in his manner, but inwardly raging like a volcano. He had never met with similar treatment. With him it was a question of throwing the handkerchief, to the delight of Nourmahal or whoever might be the lucky one towards whom his highness tossed it. The ladies of the _corps dramatique_ of the different Parisian theatres were wild with delight when they heard that Tchernigow had arrived in Paris, and the will of _mon Cosaque_, as he was called by more than one, was supreme and indisputable among them. This was quite a new thing. Not merely to have his proffered love rejected, but to be soundly rated for having dared to proffer it, was to him almost inexplicable. It lashed him to fury. For the next season he kept away from London, determined to avoid the siren who held him in her toils, yet despised his suit. Then, hearing of her widowhood and her absence from London, he came to England with a half-formed determination in regard to her. He saw her, and almost instantaneously the smouldering fires of his passion were