Clyffurde knew that the Comte de Cambray had settled in Brussels with his daughter and sister, pending the new turn in the fortunes of his cause: the English colony there provided the royalist fugitives with many friends, and Ghent was already overfull with the immediate entourage of the King. But Bobby had never met either the Comte or Crystal again. He had crossed over to England almost directly after that final and fateful interview with them: he had obtained his commission and was back again in Belgium--as a fighting man, ready for the work which was expected from Britain's sons by the whole of Europe now. And to-night he saw her again. His instinct, intuition, prescience, what you will, had told him that he would meet her here--and to his weary eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin. She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living, breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background for her. And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips. III Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her hand in that of St. Genis. "They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?" He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little hand which was being so cordially held out to him.