Conroy was indeed of a different mould from those butterflies of fashion who ordinarily fluttered around Miss Winter. He was certainly not a handsome man, in the general acceptation of the term. His face was dark and somewhat rugged for a man still young, but lined with thought, and instinct with energy. He had seen his twenty-eighth birthday, but looked older. Edward Conroy had gone through much hardship and many dangers in the pursuit of his profession. Already his black hair was growing thin about the temples, and was streaked here and there with a fine line of grey. The predominant expression of his face was determination. He looked like a man not easily moved--whom, indeed, it would be almost impossible to move when once he had made up his mind to a certain course. And yet his face was one that women and children seemed to trust intuitively. At times a wonderful softness, an expression of almost feminine tenderness, would steal into his dark brown eyes. Tears had nothing to do with it: he was a man to whom tears were unknown. The sweetest springs are those which lie farthest from the surface and are the most difficult to reach. From the first, Ella felt that she had to contend against a will that was stronger than her own, From the first she could not help looking up to and deferring to Edward Conroy, as she had never deferred to any man but her uncle. Probably she liked him none the less for that. When Conroy's sketches had been looked at and commented upon, the majority of the company went back into the drawing-room. Dancing now began, and Ella found herself engaged to one partner after another. Conroy sat down in a corner of the boudoir next to old-fashioned, plain-looking Miss Wallace, whom nobody seemed to notice much, and was soon deep in conversation with her. Ella was annoyed two or three times at detecting herself looking round the room and wondering what had become of him. Somehow she seemed to pay less attention than usual to the small-talk of her partners. They found her indifferent and distrait. "She may be rich, and she may be handsome," remarked young Pawson of the Guards to one of his friends, "but she is not the kind of woman that I should care to marry. She has a way of freezing a fellow and making him feel small; and that's uncomfortable, to say the least of it." By-and-by Conroy strolled into the drawing-room, and Captain Lennox, who happened to be watching Ella at the time, saw the sudden light that leapt into her eyes the moment she caught sight of his form in the doorway. "She's interested in him already," muttered the Captain to himself. "This Mr. Conroy is playing some deep game, or I am very much mistaken. I wonder where he has met her before?" "How do you think my niece is looking?" asked Mrs. Carlyon of Captain Lennox, a little later on, as she glanced fondly at Ella. "Uncommonly well," replied the Captain. "She always does look well." "Ah no, not always. She was not looking well when she came to me."