She moved hastily to the side of her mother, and Lester Vane, muttering an oath, sallied into the reception-room. The dinner was announced--was eaten; and, at a somewhat late hour, dancing commenced. Lester Vane sought Evangeline for a partner. She distinctly declined to dance with him, and he turned away infuriated. Not that she danced at all: her brain was in a whirl of confusion. She was alarmed by the agitation displayed by her mother, who, flushed and excited as she had never seen her before, followed Lester Vane like a shadow; and, whenever he commenced conversation with a group of guests, interposed and broke it up, to follow him still. She was much startled and nervously frightened, too, by her father’s aspect. He seemed to walk like a somnambulist through the saloons. He appeared to be wandering as in search of some one, and eventually he disappeared. The admirable quadrille band played its most enlivening airs, and the dancing went on with spirit. Evangeline looked among the dancers for her sister Margaret; for, in spite of her repellant coldness, she thought that she would lend an ear to her forebodings respecting both parents. Indeed, she was growing distracted; for, what with Charles Clinton’s vague warning, her father’s ghastly aberration, and her mother’s flushed excitement, she felt each coming instant would produce some event of a frightful kind. But Margaret was not to be seen; Evangeline searched the saloons in vain. No; she was in the garden, with a thick shawl muffled round her, listening to the pleadings of the Duke of St. Allborne. What had they been saying to each other? “The jeuce take the wauld!” cried the Duke. “You will be my Duchess some day, and you will be coawted and _feted_ as othaw Duchesses and Countawesses have befaw you, who have had the spiwit to seize such a glowious oppawtunity as this!” Margaret hesitated a moment. The coronet danced in her eyes--to part with him now was to lose that bauble. “I will go with you, St. Allborne,” she said, in a trembling tone. “My angel!” said the Duke, enrapturedly. The woman rose up in her heart at last. She laid upon his arm her gloved and jewelled hand. “You will be faithful and kind to me, and always love me, St. Allborne?” she faltered; yet the words were uttered with anxious earnestness. “Love you, my pwecious little wogue,” he responded, with nervous excitement, though he had no ultimate intention of keeping his promise, “why I adaw you now, and when you weveal to me the disintawested chawacter of youaw love faw me by living with me until the distwessing hut wigowous impediments to ouaw mawiage aw wemoved, what can I do but waw-ship you. Come, let us be off befaw we aw missed from the ball-woom.” He folded her shawl tightly round her trembling frame, and, placing his arms close about her waist, he drew her to the same spot from whence Hugh Riversdale had conveyed her sister Helen away.