A change had come over one person who has played an important part in this little drama--Lord Ticehurst. Gilbert Lloyd's place in that young nobleman's establishment never was filled up, much to the disgust of Bobby Maitland, who wrote off directly he heard of the quarrel, volunteering his services, and being perfectly ready to throw over his then patron, Mr. Stackborough, at a moment's notice. But the news of his old companion's death acted as a great shock upon the young earl, and those reflections which had come upon him during that homeward drive from Hastings, after his refusal by Miss Lambert, came upon him with redoubled force. His life was purposeless, and worse than purposeless; was passed in a not very elevated pursuit among very degrading surroundings. He had a name and position to keep up; and though his brains were not much, he knew that he might do something towards filling his station in life, and, please God, he would. From Mr. Toshington you may gather that Lord Ticehurst has carried out his intention. "God knows what has come to Etchingham, sir!" the old gentleman, who has grown very shaky and senile, will say; "you never saw a fellow so changed. He's cut the turf and all that low lot of fellows--deuced good thing, that; lives almost entirely at his place down in Sussex, and has gone in for farmin', and cattle-breedin', and that kind of thing. What does it mean, eh? Well, I don't know, more than that there's never a sudden change in a man that I've ever seen, that there wasn't one thing at the bottom of it. A woman?--of course! They do say that Grace Belwether, niece of my old friend, Sir Giles, is a devilish pretty, sensible young woman, and that Etchingham is very sweet on her." And Miles Challoner, was he changed? He was sobered and saddened, perhaps; for a great deal of the gilding, which is but gum and gold-paper after all, but which makes life seem bright and alluring, had been ruthlessly rubbed off during the past two years, and he bore about with him what was at once the greatest sorrow and the greatest joy--his love for Gertrude. This absorbing feeling influenced his whole life, and so engrossed him that he gave up everything in which he had formerly taken interest, and passed his time in recalling fleeting recollections of the happy days he had spent in the society of his beloved, and in endeavouring to arrange the wildest and most improbable combination of chances under which those happy days might be renewed. Long since he had fled from the "gross mud-honey of town"--where almost every place was fraught with bitter memories not merely of the loved and lost, but of the wretched man his brother, whose career of crime had been so suddenly brought to a close--and had established himself at Rowley Court in the hope that he quiet life and the occupation which his position required, and in which he would involve himself, would bring about a surcease of that gnawing pain which was ever at his heart.