"I haven't looked at the _Gazette_" answered Rose Lyndwood. "I hope he will be pleased," he added with a sneer. "It cost me more damned trouble than it was worth. Newcastle resisted, of course, and Pelham don't like me." "Why did you do it?" asked Sir Thomas abruptly. The Earl turned and fixed his eyes on him. "I wonder," he said languidly. Cathcart returned his gaze curiously. "So you haven't seen the _Gazette_?" "No. What's in it now?" "One of their paragraphs about you, my lord." Cathcart put down his pipe, stretched himself and yawned again. "I do not find them amusing," smiled Rose Lyndwood. Both fell on silence again. The door opened sharply, and a gentleman entered the coffee-house. My lord did not turn his head, but Sir Thomas looked with some surprise at the new-comer, who was not of a type common to taverns at this time of night. He was a young man, alert, composed, graceful, with noticeable chestnut hair and eyes of the same hue; a peacock-blue mantle was wrapped about him. He took off his hat, spoke to the drawer and passed to the table behind the Earl, where the screen hid him from Cathcart's observation. "Who is that spark?" asked my lord. "He has a business-like tread for three in the morning." "I do not know him; 'tis no one I have seen here before." Sir Thomas called for his bill and shifted from one pocket to another the roll of paper and gold he had won from the Earl and Lord Sandys. "I'm going," he said, as he paid the drawer. "It is plaguy dull here, and late, too." "I'm well enough," answered my lord, yawning. "Good-night." "Good-night!" Sir Thomas got into his cloak and swaggered off; the door banged after him. My lord yawned again, and called for a pint of wine. The sombre chimes struck half-past three. The Earl eyed under drooping lids the stained glasses and cards before him, the closed window, the flickering lamp. He drank his wine slowly, and with a brooding face propped on his hand fell into a gloomy silence of miserable thoughts. A quick step roused him; he glanced up to see the gentleman in the peacock mantle coming round the screen. He sat up, and it was not pleasure that flushed his cheek. He saw, standing the other side of the dismantled table, the elegant figure, the fresh handsome face, the masterful eyes of a man he did not love. "I had not thought to see you here," he said slowly. "I followed your lordship," answered Sir Francis Boyle. "Followed me?" queried the Earl. "I called at your house, my lord, and was advised that you were at Carlisle House. I waited there an hour or more, when one told me he had seen you here." "Is your business with me of such importance?" "Yes." The Earl leant back in his chair and idly fingered the stem of his glass. His eyes were not idle, but excited and bright, though his attitude was slack and his chin rested on his tumbled cravat.