'No, there is nothing mad in it. By the way, Luscombe, I am awfully hungry. Let us go in here and get some dinner. Don't think, old man, that I can't see your point of view,' he said when we had taken our seats in the dining-room of the restaurant, 'I can. From your standpoint, for a man in my position, without name, without home, without friends, without money, to aspire to the hand of Lorna Bolivick, is to say that he is fit for a lunatic asylum. But I can't see things as you do. God Almighty didn't put this love in my heart for nothing, a love which has been growing every day since I saw her. Why, man, although I have said nothing to you, she is everything to me, everything! That is, from the personal standpoint. If I did not believe in God, I should despair, but, believing in Him, despair is impossible.' 'God does not give us everything we want,' I replied; 'it would not be good for us if He did. Possibly He has other plans for her.' 'That may be so,' he replied calmly, 'but I am going to act as though He meant her for me.' I looked across the dining-hall as he spoke, and saw, sitting not far away from us, a party which instantly attracted my attention. 'I should not, if I were you,' I said. 'Why?' 'Look!' I replied, nodding towards the table I had noticed. He gave a start, for sitting at the table were Sir Thomas and Lady Bolivick and their daughter Lorna. Sitting beside the latter was Springfield. 'Does not that suggest the answer?' His face never moved a muscle, and he looked at them as though he were but little interested. 'If ever a man had the appearance of a successful lover,' I went on, 'Springfield has. There, do you see how he is looking at her? Do you see how his every action suggests proprietorship? Then watch her face, see how she smiles at him. It would seem, too, as though her father and mother are very pleased.' He continued to look at them for several seconds, then he said quite casually, 'They have no idea we are here.' 'No, evidently not. But I think I will go and speak to them.' 'Don't, Luscombe,' and he spoke quickly; 'it will be better not. I don't want that man to know where I am.' 'You are convinced that I was right about him, then?' 'I am convinced there will be a battle royal between me and that man,' he said, and there was a far-away look in his eyes. 'Perhaps--perhaps--I don't know,--the ways of Providence are strange. There is going to be a terrible fight; I can see it coming.' 'What, between you and Springfield?' 'Yes; but there is something more than that, something greater. But I must fight,--I must fight.' I did not understand the look in his eyes, or the tone of his voice. 'What, to protect yourself against Springfield?' I said.