During the four months which intervened between Captain De Molton's leaving Paris and his joining the party at Cransley, how had he passed his time? He was a person of much determination of character, and when once he had made up his mind what was right, he could, generally speaking, carry his resolutions into effect; at least it was only when his feelings, naturally strong, were immediately under excitement, that he was betrayed into actions of which his judgment did not approve. To Lord Glenrith he owed an early debt of gratitude: their friendship dated from boyhood. At Eton they had been bathing together, when De Molton was seized with the cramp, and must have perished, had it not been for the exertions of his young schoolfellow. This and many other acts of kindness which the rich heir of Wentnor Castle was naturally enabled to show to the penniless seventh son, and thirteenth child of the distressed Lord Cumberworth, made De Molton's friendship for Glenrith partake in some measure of the nature of gratitude. He felt it would be doubly base in him to attempt to gain the affections of the girl to whom Lord Glenrith owned himself attached, even if, with regard to Lady Blanche herself, it would not have been ungenerous to drag her from her exalted sphere into poverty and destitution with him. He went straight to his regiment, and devoted himself with particular energy to teaching his men the new manœuvres recommended by the Horse Guards. Never were men so well appointed, never was troop in such order. But his fellow-officers at the mess found him somewhat moody and silent; he was not a jolly companion; and although all respected him,--yes, and loved him too, and would have applied to him for advice and comfort in any distress,--he was not, in the common acceptation of the word, a popular man. It was not De Molton who was asked to ride this fellow's horse at the hack stakes got up in the regiment; or De Molton, to whom another fellow proposed to gallop forty miles to London to see the new actress, and down again at night,--or to jump into a hack-chaise after dinner and drive off to the tradesmen's ball at the county town: but if any dutiful son wished to prolong his visit to his parents, or any pining lover had an opportunity of flying to his mistress, he felt pretty sure that De Molton would take his duty for him. His manners were a little stately, and a youngster was not likely to choose De Molton as the confident of any foolish scrape; yet no one was more ready to sympathize with, and to relieve, any case of unmerited distress. He chanced to be in London one of the days that Lady Blanche passed there in her way from Paris; and he had been attending his mother, and three of his six sisters, to the play on the night when he saw Lady Blanche.